Yours in the Dharma:  Essays from a Buddhist perspective by Sandy Garson

This blog, Yours in the Dharma by Sandy Garson, is an effort to navigate life between the fast track and the breakdown lane, on the Buddhist path. It tries to use a heritage of precious, ancient teachings to steer clear of today's pain and confusion to clear the path to what's truly happening.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Down...Up...Down


 A friend just wrote to say among the life shifting events of her hectic weekend, she got word a good friend dropped dead while on a Caribbean cruise. That loss overshadowed better news she wanted to share: the purchase of a fixer upper summerhouse for recent grand kids.  "So crazy," she wrote, "down...up...down. First death of a close friend."

I have been there, done that. Given how unscripted and un-guaranteed real life is, that my friend made it into her 70s without losing a friend feels miraculous and worth cheering, an up in the down. I lost my first friend when I was 28. He was 29 and married to my best childhood friend, who was 27. When he was committed to the hospital with terminal brain cancer, I was the one she called to come, the one who had to stand by when she broke down, who had to make the plans and drive the car and keep things going on both ends. Five months of down... down...down the rabbit hole never knowing what to expect or improvise made the funeral a relief. 

Six years later I lost my best friend, also to a fatal cancer. I was the one her husband called to come when the diagnosis was certain. He did not know how to deal with loss and didn't want to learn. "I only win. I've never lost a game or a job or person. I can't do this," he said. "I'm going back home. You come and be here for her."  For a year I was, faithfully shuttling back and forth between my life and Boston's Dana Farber Cancer Hospital, then the local upstate NY hospital where she finally died. It was a relief.

I lost my friends the long way. On short or no notice at all, death is much harder to wrap your spirit around.  The news is: you've just been robbed of closure. You'll never get the chance to tell them about that new restaurant or make amends or find out about their latest triumph. Whatever you wanted to say next time will torment your mind. I understand what my friend is trying to say.

The long way round has similar agony. On short or no notice at all, you're told the relationship is over. In too many ways, the person you related to is not that person any more. Something has come between you. Right there mourning begins. You've lost what you had. It's never going to back up and be the way it was. Everyday you have to face that. Everyday you improvise a new relationship while mourning the old one. You play the inevitable waiting game. The clock ticks, ticks, ticks. You do and do not want it to. Death is a relief for both of you.

Most people think funerals are to pay respect to the dead. In truth, funerals are to wake up the living. They exist to provide closure, especially when there's been short or no notice. Not just a chance to get out that goodbye or praise (eulogy), but more vitally a chance to have thrown in your face the indisputable fact your relationship is definitely over. Usually, right before your very eyes, it's buried or burnt to ashes. The late great master Dilgo Khyentse pointedly observed that when we cry over death, we're just crying like spoiled children who've lost something we wanted to keep. The dead has been released from all suffering; that should be good news we cheer.

As I wrote back to my friend, impermanence happens. Down...up...down...that's life unfolding. Actors come and go from our stage as the play changes acts. Sometimes the players change roles, sometimes they disappear completely from the visible story line. But we are still in it. We are still writing it. And they are still part of our makeup. Somewhere they've left a mark on us. There's up in the down.

We say goodbye and we say hello. Life flows like a river. It moves on. I did. You can. Hug your husband, call your kids and fix that new house for the grandbabies. Now or maybe never. A long time ago, I learned you can't know if there will be later. Death is the only reminder of that. So maybe it's a good thing.







~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/

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