"When death comes"
I wrote this article in 2021 and have since let it hide among hundreds of notes, thoughts and drafts of a Scrivener file which I have started to review. When I stumbled across it, beside the fact that I had completely forgotten about it, it was going to be a simple keep or trash decision. It’s far from being stylistically where I’d like it to be and parts make me cringe but, regardless, I came to the conclusion that there was a tiny possibility that it may be worth sharing. To do justice to my three years younger self and to honour the imperfect process described, I decided to publish it without editing anything except for some “updates” where it felt appropriate.
Death is personal, death is impersonal, death is universal. Death is a reality I fear and therefore theorise about. I escape and hide my fear behind what I was conveniently taught: we’re each a soul having a human experience, the soul never dies, when it’s our time it’s our time, etc. The truth is, I have known more genuinely good and kind people passing away in what felt ‘too early’ and ‘unfair’ than the other way around. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the assholes of this world, the murderers, the paedophiles, the predators, all those who don’t respect life and the living were the first ones to go? Some people say, the Universe is law and order. I am yet to understand how that theory applies when the best of us leave what will forever feel like ‘too soon’.
It’s July 2021, in the US, the weekly VAERS data showed for the first time that the number of people who died of Covid-19 equalled the number of people who died from the new vaccines. Despite the data being in plain sight most people are in denial about this. People are knowingly being experimented upon and die from the experimentation and we look the other away. The planet is being poisoned and is dying and we look the other way. Animal species are disappearing and we look the other way. People close to us die too and we are “trying” to look the other way.
It’s been two years since I have seen my family. I wasn’t there to say goodbye to my grandmothers, I wasn’t there for their funerals. I didn’t hold their hands. I didn’t say what I wanted to say. Their death is theoretical. Until I am back, I won’t fully realise, I won’t fully feel it and meanwhile I haven’t even started to grieve. I still have my grandma’s mobile phone number in my favourites on my phone and my last text messages to her in my app. At this very moment, like many other people, I don’t know when I’ll be able to travel back home and this is an uncertainty which is difficult to deal with.
The husband of a friend who, together, have been like my adopted family here in Australia, people I celebrated Christmas with a few times, died from cancer earlier this year. I could not front up. I didn’t go to the hospital when I had a chance. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t hold his hand. I didn’t say what I wanted to say. I was afraid. I was a coward in the face of death and consequently I let his wife and him, both my friends, down. And then it was too late. He was gone within a few weeks and I was retrenched in my shame, my fear, my awareness of what I did and didn’t do. Yes I prayed for him, lit up candles, wrote prayers, and placed flowers for him on my altar. But as his wife said to me later on when I reached out to apologise: “You did it for you Mahé, not for him”. It was brutal and it was true. It will forever be true.
In my life so far, I have met four young women (16 to 37 years old) who passed away (accident, suicide, cancer) far too soon. Each one of them was kind, intelligent, loving, caring, and beautiful. They were women who were truly making the world around them better. At the time each died, I was approximately the same age. Every time I silently felt terror and dread inside myself. During the funeral of one of them, her family had placed a picture of their daughter on each chair of the chapel. When I looked up, I saw her sister who had become a living spitting image of the one I was holding in my hand. It was overwhelming. Nothing made sense.
I am not trying to make sense of anything here. I am putting in words what I could not admit to myself in any other way. I am frightened by death, by the idea of life without the ones I love. Like a puppy, a part of me would like to believe that if I look away, if I don’t see it, it won’t see me. I know this isn’t true. I just don’t know yet how to be with the truth that it isn’t true.
I am not one of these people who are at peace with death, who hold death in reverence and acceptance. I know a couple of Indian doctors. They are both spiritual and amazing medical practitioners. One leads an emergency service clinic, the other leads a service for elderly people in the final stage of cancer. One’s purpose is to keep people alive, the other’s is to care for them and support them as they are about to leave their body and transition. Both understand life on a deeper level and accept death as part of life. They are true sacred witnesses.
It’s not clear to me at this very moment how I am going to move forward with all this. Putting pen to paper was, and tends to always be, my first move. Awareness and naming are my starting points. There is a lot to unpack from there. We therapists are just like our clients, human beings searching for meaning.
So why this article and why now? Let me be clear, I didn’t choose the timing. I knew I needed to look at this because everything around me was pointing towards it. When you pay attention, the Universe is constantly talking to you. I used to think that this concept was simplistic, maybe naive and then I got into the habit of taking notes of the ‘themes’ that were colliding in my life at any given time, day by day. It’s like connecting dots that, in the first place, seemed to have nothing in common but as you observe, you identify common threads, trends, linkages that converge.
Here are the prompts that led me to reflect and write the above. Everything that follows took place in the span of 48 hours only:
Episode 5 of the French series “En Thérapie”. The therapist goes to see his old supervisor and we find out that he didn’t show up to the funeral of her husband to whom he was close to. He could not front up.
The newsletter of James Clear of July 15th 2021 where he mentions the poem “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver.
Recent data of people who have died of Covid-19 and of the new vaccines.
Stories of people stuck in Australia or out of Australia who, like me, haven’t seen their families for years (plural) and who, for some, have lost loved ones and are now trying to raise awareness about our desperate situations and longing to be reunited. Instagram accounts: @safelyreuniteaustralia @aussieswithsigns
Someone who I follow online and for whom I have a lot of admiration, who has just lost a 4-month old baby.
A friend of mine back home who is fighting for her life against the most horrendous disease and whose last treatment was thought to have failed. It turned out that to the surprise of everyone it seems to have worked. Though it’s not a won battle yet, she is metastases free. (2024 update: she is truly a miracle, she is now beautifully and inspiringly alive and she got married).
A friend of my parents has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. He is isn’t old. He is the pillar of a big family and community whose members relies on him on many levels. (He died a few weeks after his diagnosis and it’s been cataclysmic for everyone around him).
An article in French that I stumbled across reminded the readers that on October 16, 1978, Karol Wojtyla became the 264th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and his pontificate began with the words “Be not afraid” or “Have no fear”. I am not Christian but this reminded me of 1) my fear and 2) the importance of hope.
An article from Heather Heying, scientist and evolutionary biologist, where she described how she nearly died in a boat accident in the Galápagos. She wrote: “I am under the boat, trapped, with no air. Into my head, in front of my eyes, images come: my two boys, my man. And a mantra: I am not allowed to die.”
I found myself on my own in a tramway carriage with a man singing along with his phone repeating over and over the words: “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. I was so intrigued that I googled the words only to find out that it is the psalm 34:8.
For anyone paying attention, that’s a lot of signs in one direction in 48-hour only. Too many to ignore and look the other way.
Another funny (or stupid) anecdote to add to the mix. Before becoming a holistic therapist, I was first and foremost what you’d call an ‘energy healer’. Apprehending people, things and situations through the lens of energy has been part of my perception system and my filters to the world for a long time. Words and thoughts have energy too. Ages ago, there used to be a shop in Sydney selling clothes made by Dead Studios™. The brand defined itself as premium minimalist streetwear. The clothes were of great quality and shapes and they were affordable too. One issue, the word DEAD was written in capital letters on every piece of them. Sometimes it was discreet and you could hardly notice the letters, sometimes it was inevitable. At first, I didn’t think much of it, I probably didn’t think of it at all. These days (read years later in 2021), I can’t bring myself to wear any pieces of clothing I own from the brand. I donate a lot of things but strangely, I haven’t been able to part with some remaining pieces either. Maybe it’s ridiculous and blunt dumb, maybe it’s superstition. Truth is, I am feeling uneasy every time I try to wear them with an underlying feeling of “what if”. There is no hiding from it. There is no looking away from it. (Update: it’s now 2024, and I still have two pieces: a sweater from which I removed the embroidered letters and a jacket. Go figure).
Where from here? First, back to basics. Looking at some trusted literature on grief and loss on one hand, hope and fear on the other. Some of it targeted at therapists (always good to revisit), some targeted at anyone experiencing bereavement. Then working through the different stages of grief, including: denial, guilt, forgiveness, self-forgiveness, anger, acceptance. This is far from being a linear process. Some work I can do on my own, some work I'll do with my own therapist. In any case, I know this can’t be rushed, it can’t be bypassed either. I can’t look the other way.
In practical terms, this might also include:
A book I always wanted to read: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Re-read the book: Testimony of Light: An Extraordinary Message of Life After Death by Helen Greaves
I leave you with the end of the poem “When Death Comes” of Mary Olivier which goes like this:
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world
And maybe you’ll appreciate it read by Candace Barrett Birk.
Thank you for reading.
Mahé