responding to loved ones deaths

[Lorna]

i'm going to apologise before i start because i think this post is going to become a stream of thoughts rather than a question or a problem seeking an answer, but i'd be interested in hearing other people's views

generally i'm wondering what your response is to the death or terminal decline of loved ones?

over the past few years my grandparents and their siblings have been reaching the end of their incarnations, lots of people passing on, lots of funerals etc. now the people who i have felt closest to i have felt a perfection about their physical death. my mum's father, so many wonderful things happened in the months leading up to his death, which was quick, as he would have wanted it. i felt joy at his passing, not saddness.

my mum's auntie, who is very dear to her, was diagnosed with a terminal cancer last week, the day before christmas eve, very advanced, affecting many organs although she is broadly symptom free at the moment and i know that when her pain comes it will be managed well. such news obviously cast a shaddow across christmas for most people in my family but again i feel joy. her diagnosis also has a sense of perfection, in her older years she has seized life and truly lived it, and her goodbye, likely to be months rather than weeks, gives her family the opportunity to demonstrate their love and appreciation of her, a very important, positive thing for all involved.

however to see the perfection in a loved ones demise seems a very strange thing. not that i am saying such things.

it saddened me that my auntie, so dedicated to catholicism throughout her life with a divinity degree and having sacrificed a marriage and possible children because her sweetheart was a divorcee, has the church but seems not to have faith. and yet i, being someone who has in her view rejected faith by not participating in the church, have such a sense of knowingness of the perfection of her path and i truly feel excited for her, and yet this is something i cannot really express.

i feel as though i have taken a step back from my family at this time, i can't really engage with the emotional turmoil they are feeling and yet i have such empathy and understanding of why they are feeling as they do. it seems like such a deeply sad thing to reach the end of a life devoted to a religion and then to find that you only have the religion, not the faith. that is the real saddness for me.

[Peregrinus]

Prior to awakening, I felt sorrow at not being able to see someone again, but not in their death. It was minor grief for myself, but not for them. I always felt dying was as much a part of life as being born, a part of the natural cycle. After the death of my younger brother, watching the sun rise brought me total peace.

Now I understand why. As awakened ones, I believe we understand the transition to death is not an end, as most people do, and thus find it to be something to celebrate rather than grieve. Once you have true faith, and that faith becomes strong, there is only love and joy in all creation.

[ayadew]

Dying has been quite a central part of my life, I've seen many loved ones fall away, even a partner I had died to cancer two years ago.
When you depend on a persons physical frame for happiness, really integrate it into your life, you will feel a complete loss of self for a long time. I was miserable for many months after that. You really miss a person's physical frame, until you realize they are all inside you anyway. To hear that they've gone beyond the veil to a more harmonious existence has helped me quite much with death.

Now I've seen death so many times. I've seen it in myself, in my memories. There is no death, there is only life. Death won't haunt me again, but a terrible lesson it were in this existence.

[Ali Quadir]

Good insights. I feel the same, at some point I acquired the feeling that death was the finalization where people become one with all from which they will come back in many shapes or forms. But related to self, loss is simply the temporal other side of some event. The fact that something ends doesn't change anything about what was during the time it occurred. So if this event is the experience of a loved one. They remain loved, they remain a part of us, they remain part of our lives. It's just their physical presence that has moved on in one way or another. Part of being able to build good attachment to people is not being afraid of having to let go. It's not pleasant, but as something that is part of life there are worse things that could have happened. In the case of abusive relationships the other staying around is one example.

In the process of awakening and well just life I had to say goodbye to a lot of friends, fortunately hardly any of them through death. My choice has always been to find happiness and that means moving on and remembering the good things as treasures in our lives.

I try to adopt certain quirks from people who died. I started carrying a chestnut around after my grandmother died. It was her strange thing she always carried one in her pocket. Now I do too. At least I would, the dog ate my last one. :-/

[norral]

dear Lorna
to me death is a release from the bondage of the physical
body. i feel a persons attitude about death is wholly dependent on what they think is coming afterwards. the truth is that most of us dont think about it until it starts staring us in the face. then we get worried because
we dont really have a clear idea about what to expect.
the world would be better off if we had classes on death
where people could be exposed to the thoughts of different religions and
philosophies on what happens after death. for me personally i was very
happy for my mom when she passed at 91. she was very limited at the time and now she was going to a place where she would receive a beautiful new body. not a bad deal i believe.
my personal belief is that death is to be welcomed when it comes. we get a chance to have a totally rejuvenated body and to feel
the freedom of the higher densities , so life or death, to me they should both be embraced

norral