What, me worry?

I come by my worrying honestly. My mom is a worrier and I am too. But I am working on it. One
of my favorite walking mantras is,

Why worry if there's nothing I can do?

If there's something I can do, why worry?

Worrying...regret over the past or anxiety about the future, only takes us out of the now. And now is all there is.

For most of my life, I'd say almost 50 years, my biggest worry, also a gift from my mother, is 'what would people think?' I'm embarrassed to admit it has been a driving force in many of my (good and bad) decisions. The truth, I know now, is that most people don't notice or care what I do, and even if they do, it doesn't matter, as long as I am true to myself and not intentionally hurting anyone.

Why the switch? I guess I'd have to say it was a gift from grief. When Jim was dying, I really could care less who saw or heard me cry. At one point I was in the hallway outside Jim's hospital room, alone and crouched in a little ball, crying my eyes out. A nurse came up to me and offered the privacy of an empty room. I declined. I wanted to stay close and I was oblivious to how my sobbing might be affecting the other patients in the middle of that darkest night.

That night it was like a switch went off. I really didn't worry about what anyone thought about me. If I wanted to cry, I cried. And I cried a lot. In the middle of the shampoo aisle, in restaurants, in the faculty room. Who was going to judge me? I was a grieving widow!

Blogger Grant Leishman wrote a great post on the silent killer, Worry. He cites the work of self-help 'guru' Andy Shaw.  Leishman writes:

Why do we worry about what others think? You have to ask yourself a simple question. How can what someone thinks about me help me in reaching my goals and dreams in life?
If you are looking for acceptance from your father, mother, partner, friends, or acquaintances, why are you doing it? Just love yourself; don’t ‘try’ to make others give you what you think you want. They can only give you what you allow them to and they can only take from you that which you allow them; others have no power over you unless you give it to them.
If you love yourself, you don't need to seek acceptance, validation or love from others. You can't control other people's thoughts, so don't try - just be the person you need to be...

It has been extremely liberating to stop worrying so much about well - everything! I worry less about what people think. I make choices that are the best for me in this moment. I worry less about the future. There are no guarantees, so I try to make every moment count.  I don't worry about my health or even death. I try to make healthy choices and when my time comes, it comes. I strive for peace, consciousness, mindfulness, gratitude, grace and bliss, for myself and the world.  Worry changes nothing and only takes me out of now.

And now is all there is.

No Death, No Fear

I finally decided I was ready to read the last chapter of No death, No fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

The chapter is entitled accompanying the dying. When I was reading this book a year ago, I knew I didn't have the strength to tackle that yet. As I now read the words, I cry, but am able to understand and accept the teachings. I was so glad to know that much of what my bother-in-law, Mike and I intuitively knew was aligned with a compassionate death. Mike especially sowed seeds of happiness by recounting stories of the life he shared with Jim. I fell asleep, for the first time in days, with the sounds of Mike telling stories of their adventures. Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "Those who are unconscious have a way to hear us if we are truly present and peaceful as we sit at their bedside." I believe this to be true.

The morning Jim died, I read to him a Buddhist prayer for the dead and dying:

Oh Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,...

Oh Compassionate Ones, you who possess
The wisdom of understanding,
The love of compassion,...
James is passing from this world to the next,
He is taking a great leap,
The light of this world has faded for him,
He has entered solitude with their karmic forces,
He has gone into a vast silence,
He is borne away by the great ocean of birth and death ..…

I also read him the 23rd Psalm from The Bible.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

In No Fear, No Death, I especially like the image of birth and death as a game of hide and seek, take my hand and wave goodbye. Death is not permanent.

My friend, Tanya, a budding Buddhist, writes in her blog,

We exist in the soil, in the light and warmth of the sun, in the animals and in each other. …and this isn’t a flowery story. This is science.
I think science would agree that our bodies are made up of elements that are non-specific to being human. ... Those elements will still be here when our bodies are gone. They will become another form, giving life to something else.
When this form is gone, our bodies will be the rich soil, and water feeding the tree, and the fruit that grows from it. We will be the energy given to the life of an animal eating from it, and to its baby who drinks it’s milk. ...
So, we will never disappear into nothingness. Which also means that we haven’t come from nothing either. We have been the sun, and the minerals, and the soil, and the plants, the insects, and each animal, and person in this way. We have existed, and still do exist as every single thing.
We have lived countless lives in infinite connections. Even in this form, we are new from day to day, and from thought to thought.
And this is rebirth.
For me, I find this much more comforting than the idea of an eternal place where my soul will be stored.

I find comfort in this as well. Tomorrow we shall meet again. I have no fear.

Please speak his name

My friend +Peggy Wolf 's mother, Lorry Wolf, died at the age of 88, A few months later, Peggy shared with me something her sister had told her, She said that people die three deaths. The first is their physical death. The second is when they are "laid to rest" either lowered into the ground or, as in Jim's case, cremated. The third and final death is when no one speaks their name anymore. That was almost 9  years ago, but her words really stuck with me.

Recently I watched the movie Book of Life. It is a cute movie with a sweet message about facing your fears and being true to yourself. It also centers around of the celebration that is Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It is a time for remembering friends, family and ancestors. In the movie, in the afterlife the Day of the Dead is met with great joy, for they are being remembered. Victor Landa, who was raised in Mexico writes, 

In our tradition, people die three deaths. The first death is when our bodies cease to function; when our hearts no longer beat of their own accord, when our gaze no longer has depth or weight, when the space we occupy slowly loses its meaning.
The second death comes when the body is lowered into the ground, returned to mother earth, out of sight.
The third death, the most definitive death, is when there is no one left alive to remember us.

David Eagleman, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, writes similarly, “There are three deaths. ... The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”

As Riley's imaginary friend Bing Bong tells Joy in Inside Out, "When Riley doesn't care about memories, they fade." The movie reminds us that when memories that are not accessed, they die. 

People sometime seem taken aback when I use Jim's name so casually and freely in conversation. What they don't know is that it is a comfort to me to say his name, and to hear other's speak it. I love hearing new stories about something Jim did or said, or how he is remembered by others. It makes me feel less alone, more connected.

So please, don't be afraid that by speaking Jim's name, you will remind me he's gone. For heaven's sake, I know that with every cell of my being and couldn't forget if I tried. When you speak of Jim, you keep him alive in your heart and mine.

I am still here

I had a dream one night. I was about to cross a rope bridge over a deep chasm like you see in the movies. Jim was on the other side, waiting for me. I started across to join him but lost my footing and fell. As I fell in slow motion, I rolled onto my back so I could look back up at the bridge, at my connection to Jim. As long as I could see it, I knew I could get back to it. It might take some climbing, but it was still there.

As I fell further, the bridge and Jim appeared smaller and smaller. I kept calling out, "I know you're still there!" This reassurance, that as long as I knew the bridge was there, I could get back. Back to the bridge. Back to Jim. Finally, I fell so far that the bridge couldn't be seen any longer. Yet I still called out, "I know you're still there!" Just because I couldn't see the bridge, or Jim, didn't mean they were gone. My connection remained.

As I woke, I was reassured. My perspective had just changed. No different from turning a corner and looking back over your shoulder, you can't see around the corner, but you are sure, you know whatever was there is still there. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains "Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it doesn’t exist."

In his book, no death, no fear, Thich Nhat Hanh explains how, after the death of his mother, he realized she lived on in him.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tenderly, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine along but a living continuation of my mother and father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil....

From that moment on the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.When you lost a loved one, you suffer. but if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death.... 

It 's like when you look at a sheet of paper and look deeply, you can see that the paper is made of trees and sunshine and earth and clouds, and even before the manifestation of the sheet of paper in this present form, you can only see the sheet of paper in the non-paper elements that existed before....

Suppose you are impressed with a particular cloud in the sky. When it is time for that cloud to become the rain you won't see that cloud anymore and you will cry. But if you know that the cloud has been transformed into the rain and the rain is calling you, "Darling, I am here, I'm here," if you have that kind of capacity of recognizing the continuation of that manifestation, you don't have to live in despair and grief. That is why for those who have lost someone who is close to him or to her I advise that they look deeply within and see that the one who was close is still there, somehow, and with the practice of deep looking they can recognize his presence very close to her.
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2002/09/Long-Live-Impermanence.aspx?p=3#cF9fSFKCUszLpWTA.99

I am grateful for the dream, and the grace and calm it brings me.