Zen and the Art of Dying
originally published in The Huffington Post
"We're all just walking each other home."
-- Ram Dass
A year after my mother died, I sent the following article directly to Ariana Huffington. I don’t remember how I got her email address, but I had it. She responded quickly, telling me what I had written was beautiful and important and that she’d like it published in The Huffington Post. So it was. I think it’s one of my most-read personal stories. But since that was several years ago, there’s a good chance you haven’t read it. It felt like this was the right time to share an experience about grief. So, here is, Zen and the Art of Dying. I hope you find it useful.
When I was a little girl, I had a recurring nightmare of my mom dying. I'd wake up out of breath, panicked. I'd run into my parent's bedroom, quietly put my tiny face up to her beautiful mouth, and then sigh a sigh of relief when I felt her breath on me. She's okay. I can go back to bed now.
A year ago, my mom began to fade. I recognized she was slipping away after she had a bad fall in her home and was taken to the hospital. She had no visible physical injuries, but she felt different to me. Try as I might, I couldn't picture her ever being the same again. Everyone was making future plans for her, "She'll be fine," they kept saying. But I couldn't see it. All I could see was her... now. And in this now, my mother was different.
Her zest for life had turned into an endless list of survival to-dos, from getting her fed, getting her upstairs and downstairs, to finding a medical alert system that she wouldn't refuse to use. This now had a list of medications two pages long. This now had me searching for the mother I once knew; this now - was brand new territory.
In a previous fall, I remember rushing over to my mom’s condo, opening the door and finding her smoking her beloved cigarette, blood on her face, the glass cabinet shattered to pieces around her. She calmly took a drag of her cigarette and said, "I fell." All I could think was, "What do I do next?" And the answer came to me loud and clear. "Do what needs to be done as it unfolds. Just show up.”
I've spent my entire life chasing pleasure and avoiding pain. (Really, who hasn’t?) Now pain had arrived with two large suitcases. It looked like it was going to stay awhile. Instead of changing the locks and closing the curtains, I surprised myself and did something else. I let pain in, and I got acquainted with it. I examined it with curiosity; I watched it as if it were a movie. I didn't punch it in the face (like I wanted to), and I didn't play hide and seek with it either. I just... sat with it. In zen-speak, there's a "middle way." I’ve heard it discussed during dharma talks, but I never actually tried it out in my own life until now.
The Middle Way is about choosing the middle ground between clinging to what we want— and running away from what we don't want. It's about avoiding extremes. I feel something like that after my meditation practice. I often feel calm and accepting of all that should arise in my life. But that feeling isn't permanent (what is?), and it may not always be within my reach. But maybe I could use this stillness now. I decided to try. For the last month of my mom's life, I focused on not clinging to her—or running away from the sadness. I committed to more meditation each morning as if I were prepping for something. Of course, I see now that I was prepping for something.
The world felt surreal when I knew my mom wouldn't be around much longer. But I wanted the world to feel completely real. Because you can't get more real than death. My meditation during this time helped me show up for what was present in my life. What's really happening? Not what I prefer to be happening. I found it became less scary as I sat with pain and got to know it. In fact, the pain shifted inside of me and morphed into something else.
Something that was true.
Something that was workable.
Something that wouldn't kill me.
As soon as I realized that pain wasn't going to kill me and that I could deal with it in the present, as the present presented itself, I found myself focusing on what was in front of me, with all the love and the pain that came with it. This grounded me. Instead of spinning in my mind and bouncing between thoughts about the past that was no more and the future without my mom in it, I was dialed in on the present moment. In it, my mom was dying. In meditation, we often use anchors. An anchor is anything that brings us back to the present moment. It can be our breath, sounds we hear, an object, a mantra, music, anything really. Strangely enough for me, my mom's dying became my anchor.
I held lightly in my heart the understanding that this can't be any other way because it isn't. If this is happening anyway, I choose now to give her my complete attention. The good, the bad and the ugly. The whole shebang. I didn't think I could do this sort of thing when it came to her, but here I was doing it. I was walking her home.
Our capacity to let go can help us be fully aware in the moment. Right after my mom's last breath, the few family and friends that were there gathered around her body and held hands. We sang the song, "Long Time Sun." I closed her eyes and kissed her face. I whispered in her ear, "I love you. Thank you. You're free.”
Through mindful grieving, I've learned all the nooks and crannies of my emotions and thoughts. It isn't always pretty, but it's true.
Of course, at times, I feel a deep sadness. But that sadness doesn't come in as a riptide pulling me under. It comes in waves.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn, says,
You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
This is my life. All of it. I miss my mom, but I'm forever grateful for this profound sorrow because it has taught me more about who I am.
Turns out, I'm more than I thought I was.
And I have a feeling so are you.