Befriending Death

In 2011 my father passed away. His passing took quiet some time and we his children, my mother and other family members were active carers over the final months. Looking back I realised how many sure signs of death there were that I was unable to recognize or to take in. I was fixated on my father living and regaining health. It was on the morning of his death, that I could no longer be illuded. I had seen deaths angelic presence pulsing thick in the room and on his face, and his spirit holding on when all else had surrendered to death, there was still breath. It was in that moment I knew that he needed to hear that he could go, that we the LIVING would be ok and that he is supported in going. I was that voice that whispered in his ear. With those words his spirit instantly released and his passage in the after life began. In reflecting back over the years I wandered how we could have all been more equipped for that portal of death into new life and how we could have better supported my father to die actively and with support for his journey in the after life. Death, we all share the same fate, some will find deaths door sooner rather than later. Yet how many of us have considered our death or the death of loved ones ? How many of us fear death ? Yet we have or will all know death in another during our life and it is the one common fate we share ? What could help those that will be left behind journey more gracefully and support active death in those that are transitioning ? I have been inspired to commence a training as a death doula/ midwife or and end of life council. Primarily to become death literate for myself. Already in this short time a greater reverence for life is blossoming and a greater respect has birthed for the gateway that we may all one day pass regardless of our beliefs of what is beyond life as we know it.