We're All Temporary

A client of mine has just died.  I unfortunately cannot properly memorialize here this wonderful individual who died way too soon.  I am not at liberty to identify her in any way because of confidentiality concerns but I will say this.  We had our best meeting the last time we saw each other.  There was a near mystical sweetness to the visit and I felt strongly assured that he would be okay.  Today, I heard of her death.  I wasn't surprised though of course I am saddened by his loss.  A very special individual, sensitive and very kind person who has suffered in life far more than her share.  But his last couple of years have been good.  And we parted as friends.  There can be no better way of saying goodbye.

We're all temporary.  We don't often think about this, indeed we are usually too frightened by the reality that we are all going to die.  This is with one hundred percent likelihood.  We do have bucket lists, or, laundry lists of everything we want to see, do and experience in life before we kick the bucket.  We are so pathetically brief on this planet and so governed by this fear of our demise that we run around like frantic mice trying to extract meaning from our short little lives.  Nothing wrong with this I suppose.  But it goes without saying that here in North America we have quite a culture of denial when it comes to death and dying.  I suppose it's because we are a relatively new culture here and founded very much on the tenets of modernity: everything has to be new and improved and the old is always soon made obsolete and replaced by new models.  Our frenzied magic death dance with technology is a particularly compelling example of this, with one model of computer or phone falling out of fashion every year as a new and better version hits the market.  Our obsession with the new and novel must surely also reflect in our denial of and flight from the reality of death.  So is our obsession with youth and our horror of aging.  Ask any reputable plastic surgeon.  You could even ask a disreputable one.

This is why I so heartily endorse and appreciate the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.  It is, if nothing else, a huge celebration of life through an embracing and facing of death.  Skulls and skeletons appear everywhere as families erect elaborate altars of the dead where they celebrate their deceased loved ones and visit their graves with picnic baskets, pulque, tequila and beer (or wine or whatever hooch their dearly departed used to get shitfaced on).  We look death in the face, we laugh in death's face and celebrate with all the greater passion and frenzy this very brief dance of life.

Today while walking in a beautiful neighbourhood with one of my clients I mentioned to him how temporary the beautiful spring flowers are.  The rhododendrons are all the more wonderful and lovely because we know that after a few short weeks they will be gone for the rest of the year.  Likewise the lilacs and other flowers.  I always stop to smell the lilacs, the irises and the roses and other flowers, knowing that they will soon be gone and there is never an absolute guarantee that I will be around next year to enjoy them again.  In tropical places the same flowers bloom everywhere all year.  While in Bogota, Colombia I was struck by the relative indifference that people seemed to have towards the year round displays of every shade, colour and scandalous brilliance of the bougainvillea, the hibiscus and the many other flowers that festoon the gardens, parks and neighbourhoods.  Like the trees always in full leaf.  I would imagine that if they could only enjoy their flowers for a few months of the year they would somehow become very special and beloved.  Knowing that the things we love are not going last can only make us love them more.  So it is with life, and so it is with being kind to one another.

Now is always the time for kindness.