The Doorway: I'm Dying

Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is not to pontificate on an absolute truth but to spark the questions and personal reflection on how you relate to death. Furthermore I’m not sick or ill, just in love with the aspects of life, living and dying.

When I was 19 years old I had my first vivid run-in with the other side that time could explain away. I was with my then girlfriend and we were having a very, VERY intense argument that ended with me getting into the car speeding away. The experience occurred in the park in my neighborhood and should be noted that there are trees EVERYWHERE! Speeding off on an unstable terrain with bad tires would surely spell death for anyone and it just so happened that that perfect storm of chaos is exactly what I had. I sped off in my dad’s Crown Victoria and fish tailed; I lost control. My next stop should have been at, what looked like, the biggest oak tree in the park. I was so close to that tree I still remember being able to see the striations in the bark. Suddenly I saw two HUGE figures in front of me at least 8 or 9 feet tall and glowing in what I can only describe as this golden white light. One jumped on top of the hood of the car and the other stood in front of the tree, like how one would imagine a tree-hugger trying to protect a tree from a bulldozer. I was amazed and I remember looking in the rear view at my girlfriend’s face and the look of absolute horror crossed her face, it was followed by confusion then relief. See had it not been for the beings of light I would not be telling this story right now…

That was the first time I could remember seeing them, and it’s very difficult to talk about. I couldn’t just barrel through and talk about this with humor and sarcasm like I usually do because it would cheapen the experience. I actually had to give myself some time to ponder and prepare to sit down and stare my mortality in the face. I almost died that day. I felt time slow, then stop. I literally saw the divine intervention. It’s real. These types of experiences have been happening to me my entire life, and up until that day, I could hide or stuff my experiences. In an instant all of that changed. I saw with clear sight, my reality. So I decided to philosophically explore this experience and others like them.

Death, in western society, is shrouded in so much fear when, next to the constants of love and change, it’s just as inevitable as breath. We spend our lives running away from the idea of death and thoughts of death only to try to rationalize our entire lives in a single moment on our death beds. Why is so much of our lives unexamined in this fashion? Why is it that for most people, death is unexamined? We all have to cross that door way. Hell, even in popular lure, vampires must face death in order to reach immortality. We’ll except that in movies but won’t ponder that in real life? I call bullshit on the whole thing; what are we so afraid of?

We’re more apt to believe in a zombie apocalypse and blindly prepare for D-day 5.0, but if I mention that I’m talking to your cousin Agnes through the veil, I’m crazy and should be approached with caution and sedatives. Death in and of itself can be very traumatic, but is it so bad for me to boisterously question why we’d support blindly charging into wars, than support allowing our intuition to “blindly” guide us into a higher level of awareness about the reality of our impermanence?

In all of my cogitation, I realize that I will never know anything until I’ve permanently gone on the other side. However, what the aforementioned experience showed me, is that there isn’t just ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ there is so much more than that; a whole non-corporeal aspect of death. This I know for a fact thanks to good old fashioned empiricism.

I’ve often fantasized about my death, when I’ll go, how others would feel, the things I’d experience, seeing my grandmother again… All of these things I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about. It’s been the greatest gift to my life, next to fully loving myself. 

Living fully aware of my inevitable death just gives me an incredible sense of adventure (not to be confused with stupidity, there are balances to be respected). It reminds me that no matter what I want to do or try, whether I fail or succeed, it’s going to be okay. The end of the world is not the end of my existence. My death is not the end of me. It’s interesting though because once I wrap my head around this, I’m then confronted with more questions, like why are we always resisting what is, instead of flowing with what will be? And that is definitely the topic of further thought. So in closing, I would like to state that I’m dying, yes dying! The present moment is the youngest I will ever be again in my life (and you too, for that matter). I am creeping towards death and this is okay with me. The more I think of death the more appreciation I have for life and all that it teaches. I choose to continue to live my life consciously aware until it’s my turn to walk through that door. What will you choose?