by Rose Mary Dougherty

Every once and a while we are given an experience which causes us to stand still, to see the beauty we have never seen before, to contemplate life with new awareness. Often the fruit of this awareness is the simple appreciation of all that is, even ourselves. For some, this simple appreciation is associated with death: the death of a friend, the pronouncement by a physician that we have only a short time to live, our growing sense of physical diminishment, reflection on the meaning of death.

Many world religions encourage the practice of frequent reflection on death as a way of cultivating this simple appreciation. The reflection is not meant to be frightening or morbid, or to disengage one from life. Rather, it is meant to give perspective on life, to assist one in making choices consonant with one's true being.

The early years of my life in a religious community included the practice of this reflection, although I never quite got the point of the practice. Of course we would all die. Why belabor the point? Death was still far away from me.

Events of these past eighteen months brought death closer to me, first the death of four friends and then my preparation for a trip to South Africa which carried with it thoughts of my own impending death. My friends all died in very different circumstances: one chose her death through suicide, another was murdered. Two others suffered the gradual diminishment of cancer. One at the end lost all consciousness to the disease and was only passively present to what was happening. The other was fully conscious, wanting to do the dying right and finally having to let go of even that.

These deaths raised many questions for me: Was suicide an act of cowardice, an opting out of life? Or could it be a courageous act, a choice to end the stranglehold of that which seemingly binds us? What of a violent death? Does it do violence to one's soul? Does one fight death to the end? Or is there a point where one welcomes it as a friend, loving one's murderer as an agent of this friend? What of prolonged suffering? What is its value in preparing one for death? Does it matter whether or not one participates actively in the dying process? Or does the process happen deep within us as life goes on? Why are some people given the opportunity to know that death is imminent and others not? What difference does that knowledge make? Is death the end of life or the beginning, or just a part of it? Is death friend or foe?

My rational approach to these questions gave me few answers. It did, however, provide a buffer for my grief, and it also held at bay the invitation to grapple with the inevitability of my own death. Then came the preparation for my trip to South Africa. I began to have an underlying sense that I would die there. There were no specifics of how or where I would die. I had no fear or heaviness, just the thought that I would not come back. My theoretical questioning about death was put to rest. I now had to deal with the matter on a personal level.

Unconsciously the thought of my death began to prioritize my choices for life. I spent more time with the people I really wanted to be with. I expressed gratitude and affection for them more easily. I overlooked insignificant hurts. I was less compulsive about doing the right things for people. I trusted more the essence of love that I knew would endure. I wanted people around me who could pray for me and hold me in the fire of that love. In retrospect, it seems that what I chose to do came more from a place of love than of obligation. I chose the work that seemed to choose me and let go of other tasks. I didn't have an urgency to complete my life's work. Somehow I knew that would go on.

I arranged a scrapbook of pictures that captured significant moments in my life. I prepared an envelope for my family and one for my religious community, each one containing materials that said more about me than I could ever tell them. I looked around my house for tokens of beauty and thought of who might like them. I gave my favorite icon to a friend for her prayer for me. I told two friends, in a joking way, to be sure there was a party in my house if I didn't return.

Obviously I did come back from South Africa. Only a few people knew of my premonition, so I didn't have to be too embarrassed about returning. I also don't have to deal with too many of my projections about people looking at me and saying, "I thought she had this life-changing experience. How come she's still her same old self?"

In many ways I am my "same old self." Life is back to normal. I don't so easily overlook hurts. I neglect people who are really important to me. I have much unfinished business that I wish I could take care of. I have strained relationships that I wish could be resolved. I am faced with brokenness in myself that I long to have healed. But there is a capacity for appreciation that was not there before, despite all this. And I think I trust God more.

I don't know whether dying in South Africa would have been any more significant than living here, now. Maybe more sensational but certainly no more valuable, since I have come to see living and dying as part of the same process--God's transforming process of bringing me to myself, a loved being-in-love. Life is not the last chance to "get it all right" (as though I could anyway). Unfinished business, strained relationships, my own brokenness will continue to be dealt with in the dying. Perhaps in the dying, as images of myself are relinquished, I can participate more fully, more willingly in the transforming process, but the transformation itself is really God's work. I trust that is going on even now, bringing unfinished business to completion, resolving strained relationships, healing my brokenness.

What then of the events of these past eighteen months, the death of my friends, the death thoughts around the trip to South Africa? What is the meaning for me? I have prayed to know the meaning, to live its significance, and maybe I am doing this but I don't know that I am. I keep feeling that life is too short for anything but truth and love. But I also feel that a lifetime is never enough time for all the truth and love I want. I know that this is what I want to give myself to, but in the frequent moments when, with all my wanting, I fail to give myself to it, I trust that God is somehow doing the truth in love despite me. In fact, my wanting may be all that I can bring to the process, along with a trust that in the end we will all be brought together into the fullness of love, that we already are in the fullness of love.

I wonder if my experience around death was, and continues to be, the invitation to stand still, to see the beauty I have never seen before, to contemplate life with new awareness. Perhaps it is the invitation to be here now and appreciate life and trust God for the rest. I hear in fresh new ways the words from Scripture, "See I set before you this day life and death. Choose life...." And I pray to my friends who have died, "Help me in the choosing. Give me your wisdom." Help me choose life just for this day.