The mystery of life

Of all of life's mysteries, for me, the greatest is its end. We kind of know how life begins with conception and birth. We even have some control over it. Death however is more mysterious. An illness that takes one life will spare another. Accidents happen almost seemingly by fluke and someone we know or love is gone. It's a mystery.

The greatest of the mysteries is when death takes a friend or close relative. How can someone who has always been there suddenly be gone? How can the earth go on when life was ended for them? The loss never totally leaves when it's been someone really close. The sadness might go, but the place that person held in our heart is still there and always will be.

My somewhat fatalistic musing is triggered by going to one of my regular blog reads, Winston's Nobody Asked, and learning he had died suddenly this week-end. He will be missed as he was a good person, caring, and he wrote an interesting blog about life. Selfishly, even more than that, I will miss his occasional emails and comments here as he always had good insights. I am going to write more words but will never again see his name pop up. Damn.

When I read his wife's words about his death, I felt so much shock that I had to go back and reread it. How could it be? Was this tongue in cheek? Winston was good at satire writing. He had seemed a bit fatalistic in his last posts; so was this more of that kind of thinking? No, it was for real. He had died and it still doesn't seem real. Summer isn't supposed to be about death. It's about life and full of blooms. Except it isn't always.

The older we get, the more we will have those close to us who have died. On my father's side of the family, I am the oldest, blood-related one left. It makes a person think when so many have gone over. Yes, think, but it doesn't give answers.

Most of us work out some feelings about what we believe comes after death from nothing to pearly gates to rebirth. We can't know for sure though as anyone who saw the white light and is talking about it is still here. Some who have a near death experience have seen the other side or so they believe but much of that can be duplicated by stimulating a certain part of the brain. That doesn't mean their seeing wasn't real as perhaps our brains carry with them memories we can't normally access.

Death is a mystery that despite some, who claim answers, we will have to speculate about until it is our turn as it was Winston's this week-end.

For us, who live on, even if there is a heaven or spirits roaming around us or reincarnation, we still have lost that one who we knew, with whom we lived. They will never be with us again in that flesh, that person with that name, their smile, their touch, their words. Even if we believe in the survival of the spirit, it is still a terrible loss of that physical being here and now. For me, death is beyond understanding on the deepest level even if I have learned through the years that I must accept it.

Winston was a good guy, and he will be missed by many in his real life and many others in the internet world. June was a good month, but it ended on a sad note.

(The photo at the top is of New Grange Triple Spiral, something my son and daughter-in-law brought me from Ireland. I keep it by my computer as I not only like its beauty but what it represents. It is a symbol of three, man/woman/child and birth/love/death.

The bowl behind is a singing bowl. When the mallet is circled around the top, the bowl will begin to vibrate making a unique, melodic humming sound, almost a magical, heavenly sound, each unique to the type of bowl being used. There is a bit of a gift to it. Don't hold it tight or it stifles the vibration, keep the motion constant and let the sound soak in. Some users can really make their bowls sing-- a bit like life.)