This is such a gift.
Did I love well?
Did I live fully?
Did I learn to let go?
And it leads me to reflect on one of the gifts that were offered to us this year at the annual women’s ceremony I’ve been attending since 1999 and that was a question posed to those of us who are now elders. Many things came to me as we were asked to ponder what comes to us as we reflect on facing our own deaths? Perhaps first were the precious gifts I’ve long held in my heart, mind, and soul and which are so eloquently and wisely illuminated in this quote by Jack Kornfield.
Each and every day brings us all the blessed opportunity to deepen in the ways we embody love and life and letting go. Then, when death comes, we will have the peace and consciousness of having loved well, lived fully, and let go of that which obstructed our capacity to deeply love and truly live.
Of course, this profound teaching is not about perfection, for none of us will do this perfectly. It is about wrapping ourselves and others in compassion and tenderness for this human journey we share. And it is a reflection of the wisdom of knowing that under the woundedness and the forgetting and the struggles that we experience over our lifetimes, under it all is the truth of the beauty of our true nature.
My twin brother committed suicide in 1978. John died so young and filled with the torment and despair of many “if only’s.” What a profound teaching and reminder these questions are of the importance of seeking and finding the support and teachers and mentors we need to heal, to awaken, and to live wholeheartedly. This is the healing and consciousness we need so we won't face the end of our lives filled with if only’s. Or, as Michael Meade shares, live while you are alive and be dead when you’re dead.
May we all awaken to love, life, and letting go - Molly
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