Dealing with dying

Tree of Life by Heather Watts

“Maman, when I’m gonna be a man, I’ll be dead.” My three and a half year old Ben has begun his lifelong wrestling with our fundamental state of reality: everything dies eventually. It’s what makes life possible, but it’s also what makes us crazy. My partner kept herself up endless nights as a young person worrying about death, what it would feel like, when it would come. The more A talks about it, the more folks come out of the closet with similar stories. She said it’s partly because she was given no framework to understand it, nor did her parents know she was grappling with the topic. How to save Ben from her fate? I have never worried about dying, at least not existentially. I went to many funerals as a child, and at age 11 held my Nana’s hand as she died peacefully in our home. [I’m fortunate though not to have experienced the death of children, or any violent deaths.] I am also blessed with a story I gave myself, a story I believe in, despite rational opposition from my brain. I know deep down that this isn’t the first time I’ve done this thing, Life. I know it won’t be the last. I’m not sure whether I believe each life is to teach us a particular set of lessons, leading to some nirvanic end point. But I like the theory, and I chose to work with what this life presents. I know our bodies will become compost, which has its own magic and beauty. I want that too, to be buried without a box, to become the earth. No energy or mass is ever gone, just rearranged, repurposed. Nature’s reincarnation. But that’s for our body, what of the soul? What can I, in good faith, say to my unformed son’s open eyes?

Here is what I want to say to Ben: This beautiful body of yours is the house for an even more beautiful soul; you can’t see it but you can feel it. I can feel it. It’s the most YOU of you, and it will never die, never be apart from the people you love. You are an essential piece of the Spirit of the World, of the Life that connects all things. A part of every living being that has died is in the caress of the wind. You have been part of the world since always, and you always will be. Will you always be Ben? No, you are Ben now and you are so much more too. When you breathe in, the air actually contains little pieces of others, of butterflies, of clouds and your body becomes them a tiny bit. They become you too. Your mothers’ job is to do our best to keep you safe, to help you take care of your body and soul so that this life can be long and happy. But one day, hopefully a very long time from now, your body will become part of the earth again, your soul set free to dance through the sky, to find a new body. So will ours. And we will find each other, again and again, forever. Blessed be!

E