The Peculiarity of despair.

We are all as humans dying..The way of things I am afraid.. As we get older, bits start to falter and eventually ..well you know...

This is a widely accepted fact ... we all get to the point whereby the physical vessel ceases to be a functional vessel for our spirit. An inevitability.

Why then, are Cancer, Heart Disease,etc (Fill in your own preferred morbidity) filled with such dread.....I am not able to figure it.. I know all people must die at some point...even me...Why then, when a loved one(more so) comes to the life ending times are we filled with such anxiety and despair ? I only ask , because that is what I am feeling right now faced with the slipping away of one I hold dear.

[Fairyana]

Many things explain can explain this. Sometimes it is fear of the unknown and many times it's fear of missing a person because the notion that we'll not see that person for the rest of our lives really hurts. But we then have to realize that it's all temporary, it's all an illusion (they are there, sometimes they are just beside us!) and eventually we'll all find ourselves again, because we're never really apart.

Fairyana,

It is absolutely mysterious ,, We know what you say to be true..However some kind of physical bypass kicks in...I learned a long time ago that when someone resides in you heart they are never truly gone..Not ever. So why, even knowing this , do I find that I have anxiety about it all.. I'm thinking it is physical conditioning..We simply get accustomed to the physical presence of those we hold dearest...And when creation wants them back..A resistance of a kind,,, ensues.

[skygazer]

what comes to mind is the powerlessness we feel in seeing someone we love suffering, not being able to help. Panic comes over us.
It's important to stay in the moment and feel the despair. If you have the time, don't leave anything unsaid. May the universe bring you strength, Neville.

Thank you skygazer for your kindness

It's important to stay in the moment

If it were not for Mindfulness, I feel sure I would have been succumbed long ago

But Please, I beg, I do not wish to appear selfish and further would propose that this is very well trodden ground by anyone who has ever had a loved one go home to spirit.

It is a peculiarity to me because...suffering ceases. peace (hopefully) ensues..and yet the advent of the passing..the long defeat of physical life , in which we all living things are engaged seems both taboo but worse still mortifyingly dreadful to contemplate.. But it's on it's way to us all whether we will it or not.

I'd like to think my Spiritual faith will ensure I am not alone..not ever.

So all I am apparently anxious/apprehensive about ..is the absence of a physical presence...quiet a weird thing...

Points to note...I may be somewhat hung up over this as my Mum died when I was a 9 year old boy... So residual/latent emotional trauma may be a factor.. Abandonment issues etc... Yet other Loved Ones, Dear Ones Close Friends have done the dance .. and I have ..well hurt..grieved etc..

I guess this thread is probably about the reconciliation to and acceptance of inevitabilities.. It is most likely a good thing I have feelings about it as just accepting with rationality alone may shew me to be cold and unfeeling..Yet I wonder if there is a middle ground between this anxiety and acceptance that may be found.

[Visitor]

Hello Neville.
Sorry to read where you are at, at the moment. I've been there many times too.

For me, I have a comfort zone, of some sort of predictability, about the people I know and are in my life. Whenever that gets disrupted in any way, I start to feel uncomfortable about the unpredictable.

My life story, which includes other people, is based around them. Any disruption to that, my life story, life purpose, life's sense of belonging, gets edited.
The greater the impending disruption/loss the heavier the story gets edited.

As far as I know, there are several middle grounds between anxiety and acceptance, but each one is just a stepping stone across the river. These stones are not at either riverbank of anxiety or acceptance. A stepping stone is not a place to balance one's life on.

For me, it has always been a help to know that acceptance is my redeeming factor. Without that in my mind I get too scared, or stay in denial, and find myself stuck on the stepping stone.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, was a pioneer in identifying these stepping stones. If you are not already familiar with them, EK-R stages are on the Internet.
A side note: every body has different number of stepping stones.

Best regards.

Thank you Visitor for your response..

I read with interest your response and found myself , upon following your recommended reading, to be quiet familiar with these stepping stones and very interestingly (at least to me).. that one can cycle through them and further not all in the same order from the outset ...many years in some cases , before a physicality shedding.

That is to say,, from acceptance to anger etc and by turns through all the stepping stones ...never really settling at the final acceptance stepping stone.. A foible, I am sure but none the less observable..

As you will know there are good days and bad days in palliative care,, on the bad days you are like " Is this it ?" and on the good days you are like "maybe there's a few more months/years yet as it's not that bad"

One thing is for sure.. It is yet another one of those learning curves that life seems insistent upon sending our way

As Elizabeth Kübler-Ross quiet rightly postulates..In the end it will be OK..well it always is ..even if it's not OK to me ... It is Nature doing what Nature is so very excellent at doing..being Nature..

[Tobi]

Originally Posted by Neville

Fairyana,

It is absolutely mysterious ,, We know what you say to be true..However some kind of physical bypass kicks in...I learned a long time ago that when someone resides in you heart they are never truly gone..Not ever. So why, even knowing this , do I find that I have anxiety about it all.. I'm thinking it is physical conditioning..We simply get accustomed to the physical presence of those we hold dearest...And when creation wants them back..A resistance of a kind,,, ensues.

Dear Neville, this is never an easy thing, and my heart goes out to you.

Yes we are faced with the loss of their constant physical presence. And that is important to us. We know the loved one is more than a mere body. We already know that -we know them well on the 'inside' -their character, their love, their Soul. That's what will be left when the body isn't there any more.

We know they are going to have to leave -if not for all of the time, then for some of the time -and go to that mysterious place. We know it's a real 'place' and that they don't 'die' but it's still a mysterious situation. And we really just want them home with us, in our ordinary but very sacred life.

We are all bound to try to resist this failing of the body of a loved one. I think that is quite natural. We are wired to help and protect them.

Three times now I have noticed a strange sense of grace comes, on an instinctive level during the last couple of weeks. It is hard to describe but its nature is not that of despair at all, even though we are facing such loss....It is peculiar -like the atmosphere of a beautiful walled garden in an unlikely Indian Summer....

I have rattled on Neville, probably too much...because I wanted so much to try and give you some words to help. But they are just words. And I really do understand what facing this situation feels like.

My kindest thoughts to you and to your loved one at this time.

[Dee47]

I think cancer, heart attacks, etc., are filled with such dread because they lead to change, and most of us (I am, anyway), are afraid of change. I fear change because it might lead to pain and discomfort. I am especially afraid of being alone with pain. I want to die, and yet, I am afraid of dying, because I am afraid of all the changes that lead me from here to where I'll be going at death. I am afraid of any possible pain (as in heart attack pain), but I'm afraid of more than that. How hard will it be to give up the comforts I've established here? What happens if when I die there's no one to meet me? What if when I die I'm not able to spend time with my son on the other side, for whatever reason? Even though I want to die so I can be with the loved ones who are no longer on this plane, I find myself trying to take good care of myself. I wonder why I do that, when I wish I could just leave. I am not a great Bible reader, but I remember the scripture that says, "Choose life, not death," and I think there's something inside me that's obedient to that. (Of course death isn't really death, but I think we are to choose "life" while we're here.)

It is 6 years ago today since I found out about my son's suicide. He was 28 when he died. I can't get past his death because it feels so WRONG. He was young. He didn't seem to be suffering, though he obviously was; he just didn't tell us about it. On the other hand, my father was in horrible pain on his deathbed. He was also 69. 69 is not that old, but I was okay with his passing. I could see his pain and I wanted it to stop. I do miss him, but I know he's better off. My best friend died of a heart attack on May 1 of last year. She wasn't very happy here, and I imagine she's better off where she is. Her death was as sudden as my son's, so I had no time to think about it before it happened. I miss her.

Our reaction to death also probably relates to the relationship we have to the one we will lose. That is what death is, on one level anyway: loss. Yes, we'll see them again. Yes, this life is temporary. But while we're here it feels real and like it will last a very long time. And that's too long to wait to be with someone who is important to us.

I'm sorry you're suffering, Neville.

[revolver]

Yes we are all going to die, that is the body is going to die, but even so it can be sad when one passes on, after all we had a beautiful relationship with that person. It really doesn't matter how much we realize that we as the body are going to die, and that our Essence is going to continue on. We came here to live our life as a mind body organism, and we become attached to our own life and the life of others, the more we are attached to our or others, the more suffering we will experience, but we should not be a cold stone, for there is compassion, for the living and the departed, this is the middle way, this is love.