Posted November 16, 2007
A good friend had recently lost a very dear person in her
life. This brilliant lady had built a real estate empire,
handled complicated negotiations with the higher ups,
authored a book on success and managed to come up firmly and
triumphantly on her feet. But somehow, while sitting in
front of me, tears pouring down her pretty face, I saw not
the confident professional, but a very tender, vulnerable,
innocent child trying to deal with what she believed to be
life’s injustice – death of a beloved.
Another fellow traveler of this magnificent journey, whom I
have known for close to two decades has left this world of
dreams and has gone back HOME to reunite with his Creator.
His beloved wife and son understood the process of
transition and made his last days so special, for the living
to remember his final goodbye.
Death. A mystery. It touches every human heart in different
ways. Sometimes we make up stories about what will happen to
us but we don’t really know. We cannot see beyond the corpse
when a person dies. We speculate reincarnation or talk about
it in terms of eternity. But beyond the physical, time does
not exist –it becomes irrelevant. So, can we say perhaps,
that death is the opposite of time? But what dies?
According to Tao person, nothing dies of the person but
merely the identity or the collection of the individual’s
labels and what they mean to all of us. For some reason, we
designate ourselves a role to play while in a physical
realm: a singer, a priest, a doctor, a thief, etc. It is
like a shaman wearing layers of robes decorated with so many
gems, and fetishes that identify the person. When the person
dies, these layers of clothes and the decorations fall off –
the human meaning ends. But, the naked self (soul)
underneath still exists.
This is all great and intellectually stimulating thought,
and easily comprehended when you’re looking from the
‘outside’. I understand this concept, the philosophical
awareness on the subject. But when death visits your own
family to fetch someone you love, the emotions override all
the intellectual explanation. And for a split second you
want to scream, beg for a little bit more time … “ Wait!
It’s not yet time, I want to see her once again after 30
years of being away.
Farewell, my beloved sister/friend! Rest in Peace, Light and
Love!
Maria Agudo-Arkoncel, July 29, 1937 – November 8, 2007
Indeed, death waits on all of us, but it never waits for the
most convenient time for the living.
“You would know the
secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of
life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot
unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,open your
heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea
are one?
-Khalil
Gibran, The Prophet
