During the years my children were growing up, I was quite involved in parental duties (of which there were many) at their school. Eventually I ended up working closely with another mother – we’ll call her Joni – for several years, co-chairing the school’s parent volunteer organization. She was a very dynamic woman with twin sons at the school, similar in age to my three children. We complemented each other’s skills and enjoyed working together – but for some reason our collaboration never moved beyond the parameters of our volunteer commitment; it never extended into more of a personal friendship.
Ultimately as all our children grew older, the responsibilities were passed along to other parents, and we moved on our separate ways. She went back to school to become a therapist, while I was busy with my own transformational and healing development and professional practice, so we lost touch. However we knew people in common, and periodically I would hear what she was up to, as she completed her training and began to practice and do interesting work as a counselor.
Shocking News
Fast forward some years, one of the friends we had in common was working with me as a client and one day came in very upset because she had just been told that Joni, who she was extremely close to, had been diagnosed with brain cancer – shocking news and completely out of the blue. Joni’s husband had left her a few years earlier, so she had no partner for support, and therefore my friend was already working on rallying people to help. Joni was going to need chemotherapy, radiation, possibly surgery and wouldn’t be able to do all this by herself. She was going to need a team, which my friend took on creating, while also dealing with own grief and disbelief.
Because my friend was a key part of that support team, periodically she would give me a brief update as to how everything was going. One day early on, she had accompanied Joni to the oncologist who laid out a very grim prognosis. This was the most aggressive type of brain cancer, treatments were mostly palliation, and her life expectancy was, bluntly, not long.
To my friend’s surprise, Joni got indignant and angry at the doctor, responding by saying something along the lines of she wasn’t going to have anything to do with this prognosis, the doctor had no idea who she was talking to, and she was going to break any expected mold – so to just save her breath: Joni was going to be the one to beat the odds, and live! My friend was taken aback and even a little discomfited by her vehement, adamant refusal to even listen, let alone accept, the future the doctor was presenting as definite and undeniable.
Then I didn’t hear anything much about Joni for a long time, other than knowing she had gone through whatever treatments had been suggested, and as far as I knew, was still alive. As the years stretched out, she would have clearly outlived the doctor’s original diagnosis – but again, no news had come my way.
A Final Gift to Us
Then one day, I saw a post on Facebook from one of her sons, now long grown up. His mother had just died the previous night, and what he shared in the post really knocked me over. Rather than paraphrase his words, he has given me permission to share them here:
“On Friday January 27th, we said goodbye to my beautiful mother. After battling cancer for the better part of five years, she slipped away peacefully in her sleep just before midnight. She was surrounded by love, family and friends only moments before, and ultimately made her move when she knew she was on her own. We had no idea that night would be her last on earth.
She was intensely passionate, profoundly wise, deeply caring, and effortlessly funny. There are no words to describe the void she leaves behind her.
She has made such a profound impact on every community she was involved with, and leaves behind a true legacy of love with everyone and everything that she touched.
Never have I been more in awe of my mother nor truly appreciated the depth of her work.
In the last couple months she has embodied grace, joy and peace in ways that I never knew were possible, especially in such difficult circumstances. Her final gift to leave us is this: No matter where you find yourself or what your situation may be, courage, peace and joy are always available to you. It’s simply a choice and a state of being. She managed to make that choice everyday for herself. “
When I read that, I knew, once again, that there is no death; that we are eternal beings, and death is simply a transition from one, seemingly more limited state, into another one of pure freedom. Yet – while we are still within these human bodies, we have the opportunity to touch that freedom, and cultivate a state where we truly, unconditionally love ourselves and everything that life presents. Where we embrace and honor every aspect of ourselves, our humanity, even our temporality, and then extend that out into our world. We love the people we have grown and shared and celebrated with – as well as those we haven’t loved, those who have angered or hurt or denied us. We embrace it all. The hard stuff as well as the good stuff.
And we love ourselves even as we go through the struggle of searching for, discovering and gradually building up our inner authority, even when it flies in the face of what the external world insists is reality. For being courageous and taking what life brings, but on our own terms. To go through heartache and heartbreak and illness and pain not in defeat, but as a refining fire, a hero’s journey – where even it becomes the means through which we become more fully our truest Self. Where ultimately nothing can lessen anything about our amazing, unique journey on this planet, and we become a radiant living testament, beyond the superficial spectrum of good vs bad, right vs wrong, life vs death.
As the Tao te Ching says,
“The Master gives themself up to whatever the moment brings.
They know they are going to die, and they have nothing left to hold onto:
No illusions in their mind, no resistances in their body.
They don’t think about their actions,
They flow from the core of their being.
They hold nothing back from life,
Therefore they are ready for death
As a person is ready for sleep,
After a good day’s work.”
(Tao te Ching chapter 50, S. Mitchell translation)
We always have the choice in how we live. Death IS certain, but how we choose to live and spend the moments of these precious lives is a choice that remains ours, alone. How many of us recognize that the deeper possibilities of our lives are to peel away our illusions, our resistance, our resentments? Our bickering, our regrets, our complaints? To choose to see and live our lives as journeys where everything becomes a pathway into love beyond conditions? It may seem ironic that something like cancer, something that cannot be denied or pushed under the rug, that starkly illuminates the dividing line we make distinguishing life and the experience we call death, can become the pathway to awaken that understanding, but so it is.
Everything can become a pathway to love, to joy, to peace. Taking up our challenges, our lives and all that they bring as our pathways, without conditions, ultimately creates a life with no regrets. As her son wrote, no matter where we find ourselves or what our situation may be, courage, peace and joy are always available. It’s simply a choice and a state of being.
Indeed, it’s our choice, every and any minute, to give thanks for the gift of this life, now and forever. To hold nothing back in our appreciation of ourselves and others, to flow with whatever life presents. And when each of us does, ultimately, find ourselves on the threshold of passing through what we call death, we will recognize it as simply one more welcoming doorway – opening into yet ever more love.