the circle of life

...it's the wheel of fortune...

While I like the song, I am not fond of that second sentence. The same goes for the  implications.

picture made with my phone 

I have wanted to write something about this for several weeks but I am not sure I will handle the topic quite as well as I would like. So bear with me.

also made with the phone, and I couldn't see a thing, which was an interesting way of snapping the picture

When I went to school here in the USA, I took a class that we -in short- referred to as 'death and dying', although dying of course comes before death. And the actual course title was somewhat different. See, that was an excellent example of skirting around the issue that I want to get to.

I learned a lot during that class, not only about multiple cultures and how they incorporate the circle of life (or not, our modern western culture has a way of keeping death and grief out of every day life), but also about myself and my thoughts and feelings concerning death, grief, meaningful life, meaningful death, etc.

again, a phone picture taken without seeing what I took

In general, people tend to say that they want to 'go' quickly and painlessly, preferably one night in their sleep. I used to think too, that that was the way to die. Certainly I have wished that my dad would have died without the agony and suffering he had to endure.

Then recently, one of my uncles died by a very quick heart attack, completely unexpected. And I can only speak for the living, and only for myself. But what I have learned in class, and in real live, is that sometimes it helps to know ahead of time, so you can at least have a chance at saying the things you want to say in person.

That does nothing to ease the rawness of your heart. It does not give 'closure' (I have come to severely dislike this word and concept). But it can help in the process. So now I am not so sure about what the best way to die is anymore.

Because sometimes the grief gets so overwhelming afterwards that people can't progress in learning to live with it. And an expert in grief then invented the 'empty chair technique'- you talk to the loved one who died and tell them what you did not get a chance to say when they were alive.

Now I talk to my dad and my oma all the time, in my heart. I don't need an empty chair to envision them. But I did (in some way) have a chance to have those last moments.

My immediate family is a little (lot) uncomfortable with my frankness in talking about issues surrounding death- of course they are, none of us like to acknowledge our mortality. I believe that this is a very important ongoing dialogue to have with your loved ones. Hopefully not, but they may have to make decisions for me when I can't, so they need to know how to honor my wishes, in case of that wheel of fortune hitting me unexpectedly.