Dying & the End of Life

My sister-in-law came home this afternoon. Bethesda Regional Cancer Treatment Center in Illinois told her there was nothing more they could do for her. They recommended the family contact Hospice. Having held her own against stage four cancer for over 18 months, her vital organs have begun to shut down and, perhaps most telling, she is no longer able to eat or drink. She quit sucking on ice chips a couple of days ago. As bleak as the situation may seem, she has still not given up the fight. She refuses to bring hospice into the picture because in her mind to do so represents giving up. Knowing her resolve, I have no doubt she will fight to live even with her last breath.

I've reflected here before that I see our existence as divine and eternal, without beginning or end, and that this life as we know it is but a single season of our being. I do not fear death and, if a diagnosis afforded me advance knowledge of my imminent end, I would perch myself in a chair overlooking one of the Great Lakes or an ocean beach or the Gulf. There I would cherish every last breath beholding as many sunrises and sunsets as I can against the backdrop of the awesome vastness and beauty of creation. Perhaps my affinity toward the water is a soulful attempt to exit life by returning to the waters of the womb from which I came into the world. This is more appealing to me, more spiritual, more meaningful than carrying either the weight of a fight to the end or departing emotionally numbed by medication to ease the pain and suffering.

I personally do not picture the next season, the afterlife, heaven or whatever you wish to call it as sitting on a cloud in a white robe with harp in hand singing alleluia. My gut hunch is that the kind of images of a heaven that people espouse or embrace have more to do with illusion and the ego's resolve to hold on to any semblence of life as we have known it. But of a continuance of being, I have no doubt.

I'm curious what folks here think or feel about the end of life. What about our spirit or soul or the essence of our being, whatever name you wish to give it? Would a valiant fight to remain alive to the end release a burdened spirit or soul or would the spirit or soul be rewarded by some elevated existence in the season that is to follow this life? Would there be any benefit to going out as I have described, filled with an appreciation of all that this life has given yet departing not in a fight but in peace?

Copyright 2006 Don Neale, Jr.
All rights reserved.