Death is a reminder to live

I'm choosing to live & to feel fully

The passing of a friend. Young, unexpected, and sudden.

Another friend shares that they have recently miscarried & the pain that came with it.

My partner who lost his uncle two weeks ago.

A neighbour shares that her brother passed away last week.

I feel their anger and sadness commingle with my own. The collective grief. Noticing too, how we are simultaneously alone in our pain and connected to others in this universal experience of loss. The humanness of it all.
I feel how it mixes with everything else I have been carrying of late. All the stress, the overwhelm, the sense of injustice, resentment, depression. Taxes. Money. Housing. The job market. Etc. How I have been grieving the loss of a life I imagined, and a future that will never be.

Loss comes in many forms.

I notice the weight of it, how raw I feel, the salty tang of the tears that roll down my cheek. I wipe them away and more take their place. One taking the place of the last. An endless cycle.

To be touched by death is a reminder that we are alive.
Aliveness comes with a price. In life, we feel.

And so, I scream at God, the universe, to whoever may listen.

I beat my fist against my chest.

I run so I can feel my lungs burn, my heart pound, and know that I am still alive. Grateful for this body, for once in my life.

I bake; the house becoming stifling as it’s filled with the heat of the oven in summer. But life is too short to eat shitty bread.

I dance, blasting music, singing along and not caring if anyone sees or hears.

I feel the pull to explore, to drop everything and travel. To once again be in awe of the beauty around me – the people, food, nature.

I light incense, and for the first time in years, pray. A prayer of forgiveness. Self forgiveness.

I grasp hold of these feelings, these desires, and feel an awakening within me. It’s something I haven’t experienced in quite a while - a sense of being alive.

I realize how numb I had become, how “dead”. How much I had shut out life and wallowed in my pain; in the suffering of my own creation. I had stopped living. I had forsaken this precious gift.

No more.

I come back to my heartbeat; I take deep breaths. I light incense and breathe it in. Letting the smoke, the energy fill me.

I know, that I am still alive, and that life is worth living. Living life fully, even in all of its pain, in all of its challenges.

It took death to bring me back to this truth: we can die at any time. One moment: here, and the next moment: gone. A reminder to make the most of what we have.

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Thank you for reading my words. Last week’s OST and this month’s thematic post are delayed as a part of my processing and I appreciate your understanding.

I know this isn’t my usual style of writing, it’s more like what I write in my journal and rarely share with the world. Perhaps it resonates with you. If so, please consider subscribing or buy me a tea :) You aren’t alone in your feelings.

While I say this is about the death of a friend, her death has brought a period of introspection. I’ve noticed it is bringing about realizations and truths that I had conveniently pushed to the side in my own life. In the context of what I’ve been sharing here, I noticed that I had be leaning more towards sharing about things I had already figured out, the “nicer” more “polished” parts of me. However, there is space for everything. The love, the joy, the grief, the anger. I am giving them space, perhaps that gives you permission to do the same. We’ll see where this takes me and how it changes my writing.

Love,

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