Warning: This post is unapologetically about death. If you lack the emotional empathy to read, I understand.
Now that I know what it is like to need someone to care for my physical body while I am not in it, there is something that I just can’t shake from my mind. As humans, we think we live lives of a transactional nature. Specifically humans living with the forces of capitalism as it is an ever present overtone to our lives. This for that and so on. This messages is drilled in over and over in everyday life as we swipe a card to get by.
Nature is not like this. Yes, nature works on reciprocity – the seeds grow but the soil needs care and the water needs to be clean. The animals do a scared balancing act of life and nature cares for the remains of their life when the time comes.
As humans, there is one thing that we need and we can never pay it back. We need someone to care for us in those very last moments of our life and to help honor our remains. Many people will die alone or with a few others around, maybe even a stranger at their side when the time comes. This person will spend hours or days that can never be reciprocated.
Even if that person is not there, when we leave these bodies for good, we need a steward of our remains. This isn’t about the details – cultures and religions have different needs and wants around this. We will all need someone to provide that final act of care that we can never return the the kindness.
Are you that person? Are you the one that gives with no chance of repayment? You know you will be the one to take – at some point – we all will. We will all need this. It is a promise in life. And we all deserve to be given it at this moment and many other moments.
The truth is that nothing is a transaction. We truly never transact anything. We can either give to others like it is their final moment or we can think we have time to do it later. I think we do this when it is clear that there will never be a later so we are really fooling ourselves.
Be truly present for others. Give like you will never get back. Love others like it is their last day and live every single day in your authentic truth. That is the only thing that ever really matters. Then when you take that final trip, the big one at the end of what we know, you get to go in peace knowing that everything is taken care of.
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