A few weeks ago, our family lost a close relative and dear friend to covid.
After hearing the news, I went to Christine’s Facebook page. A few months earlier she posted, “I can’t believe I made it to Medicare.” Sadly, only a few months later, she is gone.
I try to imagine her last days of life. Were her husband and children able to be with her, …hold her hand, and accompany her? What thoughts, emotions, and pain were passing through her as life was slipping away? And now, for those left behind, what are they experiencing in their shock, loss, and grief? Certainly, not the future they envisioned.
What I do know, is that my imaginings cannot come close to answering these questions.
It has been a few weeks since her passing, yet I remain saddened on too many accounts. I still feel off-balance and tear up when I reflect upon the times that Christine made me feel appreciated and important. It was her nature and personality. And this memory is what remains of her – in me.
If, or when, I am ever called on to hold someone’s hand as they pass from bodily existence; What would the sacredness of the moment expect of me?
In these ponderings, I’ve come to realize that we are already accompanying each other on our journey toward death. We claim this from our very moment of conception, as we began accompanying our mother on her journey toward death, and she accompanies us. As well as our fathers, albeit in a different way. Then at birth, we join the rest of humanity on theirs, and they with us.
It is not when given a terminal diagnosis or when reaching a certain age that this walk begins. It has begun at conception.
