Grief, death and reality: listener question

I wonder if you could say something on the podcast about death. I have just suddenly lost my husband - one second we were sitting chatting, the next he he had a sudden cardiac arrest and was dead before he hit the ground. So, yes I am in shock. But I am also struggling even to believe in death, let alone "understand" it. What is it? How can it be? I know you lost your father when you were younger. Please, where and how does death fit in with everything in this understanding? You said everything is a reflection of our inner reality. You won't upset me whatever you say as I truly want to know how this might work here. I am utterly stunned and bereft and feel quite unreal, but I feel a need to try and get a sense of what death and dying even is, if that doesn't sound too stupid, as it just doesn't even seem believable right now.Mary OliverIn Blackwater WoodsLook, the treesare turningtheir own bodiesinto pillars of light,are giving off the richfragrance of cinnamonand fulfillment, the long tapersof cattailsare bursting and floating away overthe blue shoulders of the ponds,and every pond,no matter what itsname is, is nameless now.Every yeareverythingI have ever learned in my lifetimeleads back to this: the firesand the black river of losswhose other side is salvation,whose meaningnone of us will ever know.To live in this world you must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold it against your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let itgo,to let it go. |