In our modern age, and particularly in our American, culture we avoid death; we like to pretend we can somehow outwit the grim reaper – create a magical potion, or a pill, or a procedure that will enable us to live forever.
We’ve stuffed death into quiet convenient corners: hospice, ICU rooms, and nursing homes & then we fit the dying into our schedules as they prepare to leave this earth. Not a single one of us gets out of this grand and beautiful thing called life with breath in our lungs. Not a one.
This truth is deeply embedded in my soul after learning that death was imminent for my unborn baby who had experienced a stroke in utero and after lying beside my 33-year-old husband as cancer ravaged his body; a strong man affectionately known as Superman to those closest to him – and Superman died – the suffering of this earth & the beauty of the afterlife so translucent as he communicated with angels & those who’ve gone before.
Death will tap each of us on the shoulder. Maybe we’ll feel the tap, tap, tap from the devastating effects of cancer, or maybe an accident will bring life to a screeching halt, or possibly some new deadly disease will be the villain we’ve feared all along or perhaps we’ll be one of the lucky ones who passes away in our sleep – death by old age – but every single day we’re blessed with time, we also move one step closer to the clock striking midnight, with or without a magical potion.
And the only way to outsmart death is to live: eating, drinking, folding laundry, sweeping floors, reading bedtime stories, playing uno with our children, laughing, crying, and staying present with those we love because through movement, our choice to face another day, we honor the life still present in our lungs. We honor our Creator, we honor our lives, and we honor those who’ve already breathed their last.
Just Keep Livin’
If you would like to hear more of our family’s story, please check out my three books below!
