Dying to be me.

I attended a funeral a couple of weeks ago.  It was the funeral of a golfing friend I played mixed foursomes with (when you hit alternate shots on the course and the team has to be made up of a man and a woman).  He had Nocturnal Epilepsy where you have fits while you are asleep.  He died suddenly on 29th December 2012 at the vibrant age of 29.

On my way to the funeral (it was in Plymouth so I had to drive for 4 hours there, 4 hours back) I listened to an entire audio book called 'Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani'. In her book she writes of a near death experience she had in 2006 when she had advanced lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system) to the point where she was in a coma and fully expected by the medical profession to die when she was admitted to hospital on that day.  She had the experience of leaving her body and returning to it and she eloquently describes what it was like to be free of her cancer ridden body for the time she left it.  Her description felt familiar to me - it was one of unconditional love, clarity, understanding, compassion, peace, joy and jubilation.  I say it felt familiar because I have heard so many people say the same thing about the true nature of reality, and now there is another one of us reporting that our true nature is far more than we take ourselves to be on in our daily lives.  

I drove to the funeral taking all this in and by the time I arrived, I didn't feel sad for my friend, I felt I was in a place to appreciate his essence and feel into his presence that is not determined by whether he has a body or not.  What had me feel such huge sadness was seeing his family in all their grief and despair at losing their delightful, talented, funny and young son and brother.  And all his friends were there too - he was so loved and the service was light hearted, appreciative and very real.  I realised that grief is actually love.  Grief only happens when we love, it's a product of love.

On my way home, brought back to my humanity with a jolt, I vowed to say 'f**k it' to anything that doesn't make my heart feel bigger. I vowed to myself that this precious life is to be respected and lived in a way that has me play the bigger game - of bringing myself fully to this exquisite life. 

We could all be gone tomorrow.  Death comes to us all at some point.  It's the only thing that we can be 100% sure of about our futures.  Here's to life and us being here in this human experience in all it's glory.