A very personal view of Life

To write from the heart; to write what I really feel is sometimes difficult. It is so personal, so private that I hesitate to put “pen to paper” as the saying goes.

For instance I don’t know where I came from – I mean did I exist, somewhere, before I was born? Will I exist, somewhere, when I die? Is there a great “collective unconscious” – some inexhaustible well of “Life”, or energy, that is drawn upon with a birth and replenished with a death?

Is this what God is?

Trying to understand all this (and please don’t correct me!) I have concluded that God is not “my” God. God is not personal, has no gender and I do not think that God cares one way or another what we do or why we do what we do. We reap what we sow – that is the Law; the only Law. This Law is immutable. This Law is Universal – literally. It is the Law of God. And like any “basic” law it is very simple. This is our “lesson” to learn in life. This great “collective unconscious” grows as we grow in understanding. This is why we were born.

This brings me, by a rather circuitous route, to grief. Grief (in my experience) is the searing, tearing, hopeless dawning knowledge that what was will no longer be. It is almost – and this may seem very unfair – that the greater the love, the greater the grief. But this is the way the “Law” is expressed – what I sow I reap. And love is a necessary, a vital part of Life. All life forms need love (nurture) and express it according to their kind and is why there is “Life” (or so I believe).

Together we were strong, Magucha and I – each supported and nurtured the other and the bond was a loving bond.

This, however, is only about my feelings, my love. What about, in my case, what about my wife Magucha? What about her love for me and her children and grandchildren? At the moment of death did she grieve that she would no longer have me at her side or see her children, her "babies" again?

All I can remember is that she turned her head – slightly away from me – and then 'ceased to live'. But what did that mean? Was she turning towards something; turning towards something she saw or sensed? Or was it as I suspect, that she turned away so that I would not see her deep (if unconscious) relief that she was now released from the bonds of life and (possibly) a recognition that her love would now return to that from whence it first drew life – and therefore help replenish it. Replenish it with her knowledge, her wisdom, her emotional strength, her insight and her love that had been gained through the harsh furnace of pain and illness that she had endured and overcome.

I rebel against and cannot contemplate the concept that at the moment of death a person is “purified” and will lead an “unblemished” life in paradise. That does not fit with the Law! When we die we take with us our whole baggage train of deeds – good, bad and indifferent. It cannot be any other way – the Law states that we reap what we sow.

All this of course begs the question of whether there is “life after death” or whether “the old soul takes the road again” and is reborn. I don't know!

It comforts me, however, to believe that Magucha’s indomitable spirit has made us all stronger because it has rejoined, has replenished, the great “collective unconscious” from whence all life is derived.

Farewell my love! Fare thee well. ’Till we meet again. Saudades.

I’ve edited this post by changing the poem:-

Emily Dickinson wrote this (with her unique punctuation) –

The Heart asks Pleasure – first

And then – Excuse from Pain –

And then – those little Anodynes

That deaden suffering –

And then – to go to sleep –

And then – if it should be

The will of its Inquisitor

The privilege to die -