Is there ever a good time to die?

I found out, yesterday, that a woman I had come to know from her being a client, has passed on. Since discovering this, I’ve had a couple of phone calls and email exchanges with others who have been touched by her passing and, no doubt, by her having lived.

It has left me wondering: if (as I believe) all things unfold exactly as they should, what is there for me to discover about being human from this having entered my life?

As in all deaths, my thoughts go to those who are left behind. So many things unsaid; so many other things said regrettably…wishing they could be withdrawn. Opportunities lost for completing things, changing things, redefining things. Perhaps the invitation in one’s passing is for the rest of us to pause…and consider….how else might I live? And beyond that, how else might I love?

As someone once said (and I have no idea who it was), living is a lot harder than dying. I believe that. living fully…living a meaningful and authentic life…demands much of who we are and even more of who we might become. Living an authentic life requires that we make choices that may well fly in the face of cultural conditioning and socially accepted conventions of behaviour. Sometimes, choosing one over the other brings challenging consequences either way. Perhaps the invitation in one’s passing is for the rest of us to awaken to a recognition that NOW is the moment! And we can never be sure that there will be another…..

Memories. Reminders. Whispers in the back of our mind….the single and the collective mind. All the things that we are reminded of in one moment that are, in truth, about another moment – often from long ago and hopefully forgotten – that is in some way unfinished…incomplete…not yet ready to be put to rest. Perhaps the invitation in one’s passing is for the rest of us to make peace with ourselves; with our loose ends, unfinished business and unexpressed potential. We may not have a ‘tomorrow’ from which to reconsider it all.

Timing. Can it ever be right? Is it ever wrong? In this, I am clear that I trust the unspoken genius of it all! I believe with every fiber of my being that we do not go until we’re ready to go. In that, I honor the choices made to go. And as I do so, I take a breath and I notice all around me those that can and will make the same choice, when the time is right for them. And in that moment, I will have become the one left behind. Perhaps the invitation in one’s passing is for us to allow ourselves the full measure of our experience – of our sadness, our grief, our longing that it were not so – AND to remember who and what we are. Even in these moments, there is cause to honor and celebrate a Life Force continuing in its expression, even though it may be in a way that we cannot share.

To Robyn Wagner: my thanks for all that you have taught me.

Breathing is good…..