The Art of Dying and the Art of Intelligent Living

I was listening to a lecture on the art of dying. This lecture was given by a gentleman named Atulanand Ji. It was a little bit difficult to agree with, but he said that when we dream, we don't have desire. I told you about that dream when my love came back to me and told me he would only stay three days. I remember feeling that I wanted more time, but I was happy for three days. Never in my life have I experienced such desire. Still this gentleman went into great discussion about irrational fears and a distinct drop in intelligence. Yesterday, out of my irrational fear of getting cancer, I suspect I had a distinct drop in intelligence. Just because I have to have some uncomfortable testing tomorrow doesn't mean I'm going to die, and even if I do get that cancer it won't mean I'm going to die. Although, someday I will. It's just probably not going to be in the immediate future. I love this blog and I'm not going to stop after all. I love my brother, the one who communicates with me, for calling me and telling me he loves me. Again, I am not alone. I love my best friend for taking me to the hospital tomorrow. I love my love for teaching me that the richest man cannot buy health.

Ask not for whom the phone rings...

I wasn't going to blog anymore. I was going to close this chapter of my life and move on. Big words! I'm not sure if that is really going to be the case. I promise myself that whatever comes from this moment forward, I will accept with grace. I won't try to fight or control or whatever. I'm waiting for a call from my doctor. Isn't that funny. I somehow thought my health wasn't really in question, but maybe that's not true and maybe I'm going to go through some other journey. I can't say at this moment. If the news is good, I won't even publish this entry. If it's not so good, I will. My stomach hurts and I can't stop thinking that maybe my love went away for a reason. I know it sounds stupid, but I always knew he went first so he would be there for me when I go on to another life. Some of my friends this week told me they don't believe in the after-life and that my belief is because I need to believe in it. Well, it's times like these you don't want your faith to waiver too much. I can tell you right now that even in my fear, I do believe in the after-life, and I so want to believe that I will be with my love again. I think I'd like to see my mom again too. Funny when you are really scared you want your mom. Once when my mom thought I had eaten a poisonous plant she put her finger right down my throat in a flash. Yuck! It wasn't poisonous, but I never ate plants again (just sometimes from the grocery store). I knew she cared about my life. I cared about her life and when she died, I missed it by only a few minutes. I woke up in the middle of the night and was on my way to see her when she died. I was always sad that I wasn't with her at the end. Death really sucks. I'm so mad right now and I can't say if I have the energy to go through any big thing right now. I'm kind of thinking that being with my love would be so preferable to anything I'm doing right now with my life. I get it that it's not going to be my choice. Still, I guess you could say I can't lose (unless there is no afterlife) because if I stay it's good and if I go it's good. That's my belief for this moment. Who knows how I will feel after this phone call.

Closing the Book on the Past

The book I created about my love came in the mail today. It had several surprises in it which I did not even realize while I was creating it. Our favorite restaurant, the one with the warm fireplace and the French bistro look, was the backdrop for one of the photos. I hadn't even noticed that. There is a beautiful landscape of the beach where we first met. I had not intentionally put that in the book. Strangely, most of the pictures are from the final years of our life together and not the beginning. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that when we started together so many years ago, there were film cameras and digital had not come in yet. Oh, how the world has changed. It's funny that the pictures I chose are not the best photos of us. As a matter of fact, they are mostly the really ordinary ones where we look so comfortable together. My love would have said he looked like a farmer, and I never realized how many plaid shirts he owned (I'm crying and laughing at this moment). When I received the book, I couldn't stop looking at it. I read it over and over and stared at the photos as if I had never seen them before. I added some stickers in the back of the book which show what kind of world into which we both were born. They were very different times and I can see that the world my love was born into was much more difficult than mine. His birth year includes the arrest of many famous criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, the dust bowl and Hitler becoming Fuhrer. My year has John Glenn's orbit of the earth, Jackie Kennedy's tour of the White House for television viewers, Marilyn Monroe's death and the Cuban missile crisis.  I know it's getting time to close the book on the past to some degree. It's not that I won't continue to grieve. It's just that I need some right-of-passage out of this dark journey. I'm ready to step out into the light of day and try to remember all the good things and let go of the sadness. The world I'm being born into today is, to borrow another quote, the best of times and the worst of times. So be it. I miss my love and I go on in peace. Take care. I will too.

Return to Sender or My Love

This morning I was continuing to go through papers and let go of whatever I can let go of. I found a valentine that I gave my love with Snow White singing "...someday my prince will come..." The music doesn't play anymore but the writing is still there. Then I found a valentine from my love. When I opened it, the music didn't play either. I was a little sad that I couldn't have a song, but then as if by magic it started to sing to me, "I feel good. Knew that I would now. I've got you!" Now that was a message from beyond that made me feel connected. I needed that today.
I've been waiting for that beautiful book that I created to arrive. It's kind of the final chapter in my life with my love. I added quotes from Rumi, Virgil and Hafez. On the back cover there is a picture of the most beautiful cloud that my love photographed. He had an eye for beauty. So, I've been waiting and I had guaranteed delivery by today. The mailman came and went. My disappointment grew. Finally started to track the shipping and the book had actually traveled to many of the places that my love and I had really enjoyed visiting. I cannot account for that since my address is really out of the direction of these places. The book finally ended up in Florida as undeliverable. Florida! Now my love has several connections to Florida and we visited there shortly before the huge hurricane that nailed Fort Myers a few years back. I just have to believe that my love is hanging out with the gators in some swamp down in Florida reading his book. Enjoy.

Son of a Great Man, Brother of a Great Woman

When my love was a little boy he would walk down the street and people would recognize him and come up to him and say, "Your father was a great man." They knew that my love had lost both his father and his mother at a very young age, but they also knew just how kind and generous his father had been. The father of my love would literally give you the coat off his back, and he did this once during the winter. He would deliver coal to families he knew were poor and without. He was a great man and when people would see the beautiful sad face of my love, they would remember just how great his father was. My love had a sister who was only a little older than he was. As a girl without parents, she would have the lessor opportunities of two children with very few opportunities. But children of great men seem sometimes destined to create opportunities where there are none. My love's sister would quickly be married off after the death of her father. She would be expected to raise her little brother as her son. In the house of her in laws, she would know hunger and great frustration. Even though her own life would not turn out as her own father might have wanted and surely not as her mother might have wanted, over the course of years, her great love for her little brother would work miracles. It was her love her that would spread across several continents through her little brother to others.  She would do without to give her little brother an education and a future. Her brother loved her so and came to see that without her, he would have had nothing. He was lucky to be the son of a great man and the brother of a great woman. There life was not built on sand but the indestructible stone created by love and suffering and loss.

Heaven is where True Love Goes

The moment you walked inside my door, I knew that I need not look no more
I've seen many other souls before-oh but, Heaven must've programmed you
The moment you fell inside my dreams, I realised all I hadn't seen
I've seen many other souls before oh but, Heaven must've programmed you
Oh, will you? Will you? Will you?
I go where True Love goes, I go where True Love goes
                                                                          --Yusuf Islam" Heaven/Where True Love Goes"

Long before I could understand that my love was going to die, I heard this song and it made me weep. It made me weep because I had such a strong love, and I could hear the truth in these words. Now that my love is gone from me, I think of God so much. When I hear this song my feeling is that my love and God are one--connected. I cannot even imagine one without the other. It seems that I misunderstood about God completely. Imagining death does seem more peaceful this way.

Modesty and Medicine

Today I must go to the doctor. It's a regular check up with my doctor who takes care of my women's issues (it's a doctor whose type of medicine begins with the letter "g". I know I should be able to say that word, but it's embarrassing. He is also an oncologist because I had a little trouble with an illness that begins with the letter "c". The big "C". That word you won't mind if I don't use because in most cultures it is taboo to say the word. Anyway, I'm OK now and I just have to check in with the doctor to make sure nothing has come back. When I first got my doctor, I did not know anything about him other than he is a man. A man! I really tried to get a woman doctor, but that was not possible, and I really tried. It's not that I don't respect men doctors, but the thought of a man woman's doctor was difficult to accept. When I first met him, I couldn't believe what I saw. Of course I had hoped that he would be an ancient ugly frog that I could pretend I did not notice, but that was not to be. My love took me to the appointment and even went in with me for the first consultation. I suspect God works in mysterious ways. These days I think my doctor is beautiful because he saves lives and he probably saved mine, but when I first met him I was dumbstruck that not only was he very young and very handsome, but he was from the same country of origin as my love. The country they both come from is not one where women generally have men as their doctors. How could this be? It was so embarrassing. Luckily my doctor and my love hit it off and the doctor understood that it was my love who needed the reassurance more than I. Luckily my doctor has a loving heart. I always feel sorry for my doctor because his job must be really uncomfortable and I suspect his reward will only come in heaven. My love will be there to meet him one day. When my love was very young, his own mother refused to go to a man doctor and this for her was a very bad decision. Had she gone, she might still be alive today (although very old). I know for myself, had I not gone to the man doctor, I would not be here either. For today, I am grateful to be here and very grateful to have a doctor.