Today I went to my very first open casket viewing of the death of the golden-hearted young man, a beautiful friend of mine, who suddenly died this past week.
It was a mild, soft, mid-summer afternoon. I parked and crossed the street with heavy city traffic moving by in all directions.
The very same funeral home where I sat over two decades ago at a large dark wooden table with my three sisters and my mother, as we received the ashes of my father’s body.
All these years later, and I knew right where to go, not one wrong turn. Even though I have only been inside once, it is there in a central part of my city, I see it and notice this funeral home from time to time.
I remembered the forest green trim, the carpet, the gentle hush inside.
This time I was guided to the right as I entered the home.
It is amazing to look upon the body which once held such a sweet friend, the face still intact, the hands folded gently across his waist.
I sat with his family, listening to them talk about their son/nephew/grandson, and then looking, looking again over at him….imagining him with laughing eyes open, like the photo on the stand nearby.
His body there, but not him.
The life force that moves and courses through us, that animates us…so very mysterious.
No clearly identifiable source, no socket we’re plugged into that we can see with our body eyes.
Yet, we all know when its there or not there. We feel it.
As I sat in the quiet place, with talk and movement of people, the ache in my heart was still heavy, the tears still there, caught in my throat in waves.
But I knew that this time of someone dying was a repeating experience.
I remembered that my mind wants to understand and KNOW. My heart, or something else that is not really the mind, is quiet. It only wants to be.
Those who have gone are apart, separated, far away, missing, lost, silent, absent, unfinished…..is that true?
I remember my father like it was yesterday that he was here. I see the face of my young friend with his adorable smile.
Even though my heart feels like it’s breaking open, I feel the Great Hum of something that knows this day, this moment, is part of all of this here.
Who would I be without the thought that death is a problem?
I’m not even sure.
It stops my mind short, to even imagine it…….Something happens that unfreezes a bit.
Something opens, quizzical, so uncertain, so strange….not the kind of thinking I’ve practiced when it comes to death.
What if this is all enough? What if that life was enough?
(Even though a voice protests that it wasn’t).
Even here, with the going and coming of the most profound level. The going of someone I love.
Suddenly, as inquiry washes through me, I realize that this very same day, only hours before I was sitting in the funeral home, I had run into a friend with his brand new baby only 12 weeks old. He was seeing her briefly during lunch hour at day care, before he returned to work.
A body just born to here, a body just left here.
Could it all be enough? Really?
That is the turnaround, the awareness of the opposite. Maybe this is enough, has been enough, will be enough.
“When you realize what you are now, the issue of death will solve itself.” ~ Adyashanti
Yes, perhaps this is enough, here. Perhaps my heart is full beyond comprehension. Perhaps All This is full beyond imagination.
I notice that NOW, I am going to put on my dancing clothes, and go dance. For now, this body is dancing on this planet, apparently, without needing to understand….without asking why. Even with tears, pouring down my own cheeks.
“If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.” ~ Tao Te Ching #33