June 16, 2015 – Dancing with dying

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When I was a baby I was really sick – I had a heart defect. When we are in utero, there is a shunt in the circulatory system that surrounds our hearts that is supposed to close shortly after we’re born. For unknown reasons, mine didn’t. This set up an abnormal blood flow around my heart, that meant that any little cold or other bug I got, collected in the shunt and sent a germ-bomb into in my lungs, which gave me several bouts of pneumonia. Five times I ended up hospitalized in an oxygen tent. My family’s pediatrician, Dr. Stan Mogerman at Kaiser in San Francisco most likely saved my life. The normal protocol was to wait until the child is five, to see if it may still close on its own, but he insisted that I have the surgery at two and a half. The surgeon, who operated on me – the first ever done at Kaiser SF, said that I would not have made it to five.

When I was about 30 I discovered that my grandparents had taken a life insurance policy out on me. They were afraid that if I died, my parents wouldn’t have the money to bury me. My dad was finishing college and our family had no extra money. Wow, it was serious! I have only one little memory of any of it – I was in the hospital with my mom and was given a sugar donut and a small carton of milk. I have a big scar in between my ribs under my left arm that goes up toward my shoulder blade. My heart has been evaluated a couple times and it seems I am completely normal.

But I have been really, really in fear of dying a lot of my life. I have no idea if this fear came from the trauma that my little being experienced, or if the fear developed and I associate it because of hearing about all that happened to me. My intuitive sense is that it’s the former. Regardless, the fear has been very real. For a few years after a car accident, I had flashes of terrible car accidents while I was driving. I am not comfortable in airplanes – not so much that it prevents me from flying, but enough that I am very relieved when we land. And this is a bummer – my husband is a pilot! More recently, with all the changes in my body in menopause, I have fears that I could be having a heart attack or stomach cancer… Being afraid of dying has been so tiresome.

All that life gives us, though, is fodder for spiritual evolution. In early 2001, I did a year-long program with my church based on Steven Levine’s book “One Year to Live.” Our pastor, Sara accompanied a small group of us on a year living (as much as we can, artificially) as if it were our last. I was hoping to make peace with my mortality. A sentence I read in the book has stuck with me and consoles me: “Dying is safe.” The group was a great experience, but it didn’t erase my fears.

About two months ago, I was having body work done at the hands of Kathryn Hood, a structural re-integration practitioner who has magical hands. I was so deeply relaxed in a way that I don’t ever remember being, and I had the thought that I hope that dying is like this. I seemed as if I could just float off in that moment, away from the physical plane and it would be just fine. Sweet even. She is a gifted healer (she’s the first person in over 50 years to notice my surgery scar and think that the tissues around it might need some attention!), but I it was wonderful to realize that I could experience that level of peace and acceptance about my own death – that I could think about dying without this fear that has plagued me so much. The fear is not gone, but I can draw from the memory of this experience. I know this peace is in me. And I love what Kate said when I told her. She holds that this level of deep peace can be how we live!

It seems that it’s every couple of weeks these days that we hear of someone, a beloved of someone we know, who has died. Some have lived a full, long life, but many are not that much older than I am. It can happen really quickly. Not just accidents, but heart attacks and even some cancers can kill us in a few months. It’s impossible to not consider my own death when hearing this news. What comes to me now when I consider dying anytime soon is: but there are paintings in me! I don’t have so much a bucket list of experiences, as the sense that there is work in me that needs to be created. I don’t know exactly whose “need” this is – but I feel it. Creative work is connected to the life-force, to the spirit that animates all life, everywhere – the entire universe. I deeply believe that as long as we are alive, we are a channel for this creative force. It is my experience that it is imperative to our well-being, to our well-living to give this force an outlet – especially once we have awakened to its presence in us.

There is a balance. There is a duality inherent in our lives: we will all die, and in this moment we are alive. I don’t want to fearfully obsess on death, but a wholesome presence to it gives me the capacity to hold the preciousness of this life I’m living. From there I am much less apt to get mired in all that doesn’t matter so much. And I can hopefully choose to spend my time in a way that honors its finitude – mostly this is about remembering to be grateful for the moment I am in. Like this one: Bo is softly breathing next to me on the bed, my fingers adept at typing on the computer, thinking about my husband out doing his day. And – thinking about you who will be reading this later. It’s also about anticipating my life to come – living expecting to keep on living.

In a few minutes I’ll get up and get out for some exercise with Bo. As I imagine my day, I probably won’t think much about dying. The painting I’ve just started is calling to me. I will work on it, and I will work with my Tuesday student. I will post the painting I just finished on my website and pay the credit card bill that’s due. Later, I’ll cook food for us and cuddle with my Joe and my Bo. It’s almost hard to fathom how we can have the capacity for both: to be contemplative – present to the preciousness of life, we don’t know how soon, but we will die – and to do all the things on the list – as well making our list expecting tomorrow. What I’m grateful for at this point in my evolution, is that in my best moments, there is the capacity to hold both at the same time.

Love,

Cara