Finding Light in the Shadow of Departure

This newsletter is about death. So, if you are not into that subject, maybe you should stop reading now. But if you are interested in life, you might keep reading.

Death is an integral part of life. Because you are reading this, you are alive, and while I am writing this, I am alive too. But there is no way I will know I am still alive when this newsletter hits your inbox. And you definitely don't know if I will be here when you read this.

So much for certainties.

I remember seeing one Peanuts strip where Charlie Brown says to Snoopy, "One day we will die." Snoopy answers, "But all other days, we won't."

Somebody I know was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and was given a maximum of six months to live. She didn't let the news stop her. On the contrary, she booked tickets for an extended overseas trip to visit all her friends and relatives in all parts of the world. She started to live to the fullest.

I met her yesterday. She told me the trip last September and October was a great adventure. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you know," she said wryly. Her sense of humour didn't stop cancer, but it certainly made it less frightening. Yesterday, she was just a shadow of her springy self who had gone on that long trip.

She has about a couple of months left, give or take. Instead of waiting, she had a plan.

In New Zealand, we allow assisted suicide – euthanasia. That's what my friend chose to do. Her final departure is scheduled to happen in two weeks. No luggage is required, and no cabinet bags are needed. Compared to this life, the new journey is a long one. This life is just a quick transit hall from here to eternity.

Nichiren Daishonin wrote in 1280, two years before his death, these beautiful words:

"How swiftly the days pass! It makes us realize how few are the years we have left. Friends enjoy the cherry blossoms together on spring mornings, and then they are gone, carried away like the blossoms by the winds of impermanence, leaving nothing but their names. Although the blossoms have scattered, the cherry trees will bloom again with the coming of spring, but when will those people be reborn? The companions with whom we enjoyed composing poems praising the moon on autumn evenings have vanished with the moon behind the shifting clouds. Only their mute images remain in our hearts. Though the moon has set behind the western mountains, we will compose poetry under it again next autumn. But where are our companions who have passed away? Even when the approaching tiger of death roars, we do not hear and are not startled. How many more days are left to the sheep bound for slaughter?"

Nichiren had to face death several times during his life. Once he was sentenced to be beheaded, only a superstitious executioner stopped the sword, cutting his neck at the last moment. It was maybe this ongoing sense of death that made him live so fully and compassionately.

Do we need to face death before we start to live?

I think so. Our disjointed society has buried this inevitable part of life from us and convinced us that there is some eternal youth.

I don't miss my youthful years. Nor do I yearn for my death, but I wait for it curiously.

When I was 16 years old and went to Germany to improve my German skills, I got a job at a hospital. My first task was to take a dead body from the ward to the morgue. And that was my morning routine for the rest of the summer. I became pretty used to death.

Since that summer in Germany, death has lost its Grim Reaper hoodie in my life. For me, it has shown a more gentle appearance. Without its presence, the joys and sorrows of life would be a tasteless series of repetitions. We would not learn anything because, without death, we would have an eternity to screw up time after time.

And I bet we would not learn anything if we were immortal in our current forms. Death is the best life coach there is. Actually, the only one worth listening to.

But let's go back to yesterday's encounter with my friend. Even if the cancer had eaten her to half her size, her eyes shone with life and love. She had made her dream trip, enjoyed herself this final summer, and was content. She had lived to the fullest—at least these last few months.

She hugged me. While holding her frail body, I remembered when I was a small boy and found an injured sparrow on the path. It had narrowly escaped the cat, but when I took it from the grass, it shivered and opened its beak, and then there was nothing. The little bird was gone with better wings and warmer winds.

I let my friend out of my embrace and saw in her a tiny sparrow—not a frightened one, but one that would be born again as an eagle in some way or form. I knew that she had made a courageous decision, and I knew that she was ready for her next journey. She had gotten all this life had in store for her, and now it was time to go.

It is always harder for those who stay than those who move on. 

The parting gift we get from those who leave this life is the reminder not to waste our days worrying about what comes next. One day, it's most certainly death, but before that, we have all life in the universe to celebrate, wonder and fill our souls with.

I will be there in two weeks when my friend departs. It is a bittersweet thought, but I know we will meet again. Until that, I will live to the fullest.

How about you?

Ngā mihi

Jussi

This week’s Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez is a seminal story about the Buendía family over seven generations in the fictional town of Macondo. The novel is a blend of magical realism and historical fiction. Márquez filled it with larger-than-life events, characters, and their lives using language that sucks you into its world, and you don't want to get out from there, ever.

This book was one of my teenage treasure troves. I read it like I had oxygen for the first time in my literary lungs. 

The patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, found Macondo in the Columbian rainforest with his wife, Úrsula. The family's history is loaded with extraordinary events, incestuous love, and a curse that continues through generations. The characters often cannot escape their predetermined destinies despite their efforts.

The novel is also a commentary on Latin America's political and social upheavals, with events like the Thousand Days War and the arrival of a banana company illustrating imperialism and exploitation affecting Macondo.

The story ends with the last Buendía deciphering a prophecy that reveals the family's fate and the town's destruction, thus fulfilling the cycle of one hundred years. The novel represents the solitude of existence and the inevitability of history repeating itself.

But somehow, it is filled with wit, hope, and will to live and explore what life offers.

Get it from Apple Books or Amazon.