Are You Dying Alone?

 I was pondering life today. Actually, I was thinking about those who die due to illnesses, physical or mental. And...those who die alone. I think, in a way, the stress of the pandemic makes us all feel a little bit like we are dying alone. Which made me think of my husband's life and his suicide. 

I think he spent more days dying alone while he was living, than he did while he was trying to die. I know that's hard to wrap your head around. Believe me, I wrestle with it daily.

Here's the deal, we can actually live the life we are given, or we can try to shut it down all the days of our life. I won't pull any punches, it's hard, it doesn't work out how we imagined. Sometimes it's better than we dreamed, sometimes it's a nightmare we can't even begin to fathom. We have to push ourselves forward, hold ourselves back. We have to own our mistakes and learn from them. We have to celebrate our successes. We have to ask for help and accept that we need it. We have to learn to forgive. Often we have to forge a new path seemingly on our own. We have to acknowledge the fear and push through it. We have to invite in the joy and embrace it. We have to plant seeds of faith, tend and harvest them.

He lived with a deep ache inside him, and in the end he let go. In his case, in spite of trying to die alone, he died physically and emotionally surrounded by people who loved and cared for him. In that regard he got lucky. 

Here is the hard question. Are you living each day, or dying alone each day. Are you making mistakes and learning from them? Are you challenged by a messy life, and blessed by it? Every day we have the opportunity to begin again, to make new decisions, to change our path. 

I will never understand his choice, or the depth of his pain. He chose not to share it, own it, heal it. In taking his life he transferred his pain to us. We have to chose how to handle what we are given. Each of us has pain and opportunity. Are you living in yours, or dying in it.