Are the Dead Grateful?
My therapist said to me yesterday when I saw her out walking, “Adulthood sucks.” Her best friend had died.
I ran into a friend of mine at the dog park this morning, she told me a mutual friend of ours had died. Chris, who started Bacchanal, a place where we would gather after the 2005 Federal Flood – 10 years later, he’s dead in his sleep. How can this happen?
My friend writes to tell me her cousin went into a coma last night. He was at the park enjoying the day with his wife, and then he was making tacos for her, and then he was in a coma.
I rode home from the retreat with someone who told me two stories about women in his life who had died of cancer – both stories brought tears to my eyes.
Another man at the retreat told me of his near death experience – his out of body – his clear realization of being a spiritual being having a human experience.
The messaging – the portents – the clear cut this is what you are supposed to be focusing on is this – what will you do with your one and precious life?
Or at least this one and precious life that you are in now.
And while you are figuring that out – be grateful.
Birago Diop: “Sighs”
Hear more often things than beings,
The voice of the fire listening,
Hear the voice of the water.
Hear in the wind
The bushes sobbing,
It is the sigh of our forebears.Those who are dead are never gone:
They are there in the thickening shadow.
The dead are not under the earth:
They are in the tree that rustles,
They are in the wood that groans,
They are in the water that runs,
They are in the water that sleeps,
They are in the hut, they are in the crowd,
The dead are not dead.Those who are dead are never gone,
They are in the breast of the woman,
They are in the child who is wailing
And in the firebrand that flames.
The dead are not under the earth:
They are in the fire that is dying,
They are in the grasses that weep,
They are in the whimpering rocks,
They are in the forest, they are in the house,
The dead are not dead.