Interpretations
 

Being moved by spirit without thoughts or words, in my opinion, is pure spirituality. I am volunteering at a local hospice in my home town and the greatest asset people who are dying have is silence; silence in mind and speech.

Although initially lots of people who are dying want to review the life they have lived. Most are mot grieving the lost of their life as much as their loved ones might be. Many have surrendered to the process and the knowledge that their time to go is at hand.

We are all terminally ill, no “body” gets out of this life alive. But life itself does leave our body, and in my opinion, we are that life. I find it interesting how in a newborn nursery all of the babies are lined up in their bassinets and they have no distinction with each other.

It is the same in a cemetery with all of the grave stones and markers lined up, and while there are different marking on the gravestones, below the ground there is no distinction. Between birth and death it seems all of the distinctions and interpretations take place.

This too, what I am saying in this post, is an interpretation. How things are interpreted often divides us. One person’s truth may not be another person’s truth, etc. In my opinion experience is more important then the words and thoughts which we apply to experience.

Although words and thoughts are how we express ourselves, still silence speaks. When I walk into a hospice there is a certain ambiance, a smell, a presence, which might be interpreted as death, and with the term death, for many comes a bad feeling, but death is not a good or bad thing.

It is a transition which begins in the womb, as unborn babies die in their mothers womb. It is not about what we think or say, it is about the experience of letting go of what we think or say. Doing volunteer work with people who are dying is teaching me a great deal.

Starman…….” One person’s truth may not be another person’s truth, etc. In my opinion experience is more important then the words and thoughts which we apply to experience

I so agree with this Starman.

What I have seen through working with people is some would be very Humbled by what you do for them other very Angry.
A friend I was looking after was very negative and Angry that she had cancer she thought some body else should have it not her.
until she realised what she had said.

I lost my husband to cancer at the age of 44 she was late 70 still she was angry so I showed her a poem I wrote when we lost my father in law
she cried and she finally understood. that we all face dying.
so I can fully agree with Starman


Namaste

Native Spirit, anger is part of the grieving process, so is bargaining; how come me, etc. People who are terminally ill often do not readily accept their death. An some do accept their death but their loved ones do not.

The grieving process has many stages and it is not the same for everyone. Thank you for sharing your very personal story, which most probably you also grieved that lost, maybe in a different way than your spouse.

Namaste:hug3:

When I am with someone who is on their death bed, them having moments or days to live, mostly I just listen, try to feel them and allow them to feel me. I do not tell them about my concepts of death, near death or out of body experiences. I will support them in their religious beliefs as long as their beliefs are about love.

A young girl set herself on fire to get back at her parents, her minister came in to visit and told her, as she was in bed dying, that she was going to hell for what she had done. I had to remove this guy from her presence. The minister left a Bible by her bedside, and when I went back into her room she asked me if I could read from that Bible to her.

I am not a Christian but I opened the Bible and began to read. I don’t remember the verse but it seemed to help her and she died peacefully. I would have done the same thing for a Muslim, Jew, etc. Because it was not about me. So here is something someone wrote and gave to me:

“Its time to cross over, its time to go home. She is so still, she knows it’s the end. To each she gives a final gaze, as her loved ones grieve for such a young soul. Through our tears we see her smile, its time to let go. In her final breath she sweeps our difference aside. Its time to cross over, its time to go home.”

That is touching the friend I looked after I went to her funeral I saw her standing in the front waving to me and smiling her late husband by her side.
My daughter is a student Nurse,
she was one one placement when a guy came in for an op he had cancer he asked my daughter to stay with him until he went to theatre as his wife couldn't get to the hospital on time. and he asked her to be there when he opened his eyes ,

she was there to welcome him back from the op but the sister said to my daughter you have helped him because he could have died
you can give him the news when he wakes up and his family get here.
It turned out he did have a massive tumour, but they got it all out the cancer was gone.

Namaste

I'm not sure if you enjoy poetry or not, but if you do, I think you'd enjoy a poem called "Here", by Philip Larkin. It loosely describes what you described, and is one of my favourite all time poems.

I have been spending time doing volunteer work at a local hospice, it is fascinating for me to be with people as they take their last breath. Some I see at the hospice while others I visit in their home. Many want hospice support but they want to die in their own bed at home. So I am there to support them and their family during their transition.

You have to be certified by a physician of having only 6-months or less to live to be admitted to hospice care. Most people are responsive while some are not responsive, they are in a coma or just severely deteriorated in mind and body. It is not a sad thing for me and I often wondered why we celebrate the birth of a baby and grieve the death of a person. Death for me is the same as birth. The end of human life is similar to the beginning of human life.

Although it can assault our senses, the smell of death is poignant, it many even look very “bad,” etc. But the transition which we call death is actually beyond the senses, and I am growing emotionally and spiritually from being in a persons’ presence as they relinquish their physical body. No sadness, death is a very natural process regardless how a person dies.

I find it comical when people talk about ghosts and spirits, because we are all ghosts and spirits; the only difference is that we have a physical human body and they do not.

There is nothing mysterious or supernatural about it; we came from the afterlife into this world and then we return to the afterlife from this world; its that simple. Everyday people are experiencing death, the death of an idea, a wish, a hope, a relationship, or other thing which they may grieve, even if only briefly.

Life is not what I do, life is what I am, and when life leaves my physical body, that is me leaving. My physical body can not be alive without me in it, or attached to it. There is nothing to fear. Nothing can get us unless we put faith in it and open up to it. Otherwise the process of death is very safe, in my opinion. I do not impose my opinions on people whose physical body is near death.

The fact is death of the physical body begins in most people in their forties when the body on a cellular level has more cells dying then it does cells being born. Death is not a morbid subject to me; it is as natural as laughter. The point is to live a high quality life even as the body declines.

So true Starman



Namaste