Last night, I had a detailed and vivid dream that my father died. We have always been extremely close, and so I woke up scared and upset and angry. And throughout the day, with my clients and at work, it got me thinking. Like most, I have not been fully able to accept the spectrum of human life—and death—and what that process represents.
Everything that lives dies, and as simple as that statement may be, the grief, confusion and pain that comes with such loss is devastating. We avoid it, deny it, challenge it, as if we have the power to alter the universe and control its dynamics.
Embracing death sounds morbid. We associate it with suicidal ideation and depression. We get squeamish around the topic. We don’t talk about it, at least in open and honest terms. We wrap it up in sugarcoated sentiments or in awkward silences. We seek for answers and reassurance when it often does not exist.
In reality, people who are comfortable with death and dying tend to be more comfortable with life and living. They acknowledge fatality, and they acknowledge that everything is temporary, transitional, and with the moment at hand.
Rather than avoiding the time clock looming over their head, they live with it, integrate it, become comfortable with it. This form of acceptance is nothing groundbreaking, and most psychotherapists teach this concept in some fashion in their practice. I frequently emphasize the value of mindfulness, but I also recognize that embracing exactly what is can be daunting, especially when we don’t like it.
And none of us have to like death! Death hurts. It evokes loneliness and fear; when it happens to someone we really care about, the incident often rocks our entire world. We are social creatures who become attached to one another through empathy, compassion, and trust. Liking death counteracts our evolutionary instinct for survival and connection, but I do believe we need to be comfortable with it.
Becoming comfortable with death means becoming comfortable with immortality, fallibility, and change. And by truly accepting that something or someone is temporary and fleeting, we learn to value it. We appreciate it for what it is; furthermore, we take better care of it. This applies to material things as much as it applies to our relationships with loved ones. When we know something is “limited-time only,” we can embrace it fully. When we expect that it will “always be there,” we trick ourselves into thinking we can embrace it tomorrow.
Though it may seem paradoxical, I believe that the denial to acknowledge death is strongly associated with the denial to acknowledge life. The individual is existing on a shadowed auto-pilot under a false facade of invincibility.
This doesn’t mean living each day like it’s your last. That philosophy is driven by hedonism, and when we are driven by hedonism, we run on impulse, and often, irrationality. And when we wake up the next morning, because it wasn’t our last day, we are left with the remnants of choices we didn’t want to make and actions we didn’t to take.
This also doesn’t mean living in anticipation for the worst. That philosophy is driven by anxiety, which is the antithesis of present living. When we are anxious, we are consumed by the worries we cannot control. Death is scary, but living in a bubble of heightened fear only exacerbates the terror, and therefore, exacerbates our suffering.
Like the recipe to most things in life, the key is balance. The individual who commits to enrichment with life embraces and enjoys what she or he has, at that moment, in that time, and with those resources. That person is not cheating life nor death; rather he or she just is. That person is just being with the universe knowing that it can and will change, unexpectedly or not. They live in a coexistence with death. They know time is limited, but they choose to react positively to that fact rather than negatively.
And no, for the record, I don’t want anyone I love to die. I don’t want to die, either. But I know they will, and I know I will, and that is okay. I choose to let this fuel, rather than restrict, my desire to live, as temporary as my time in this universe may be.