This reflection on death urges embracing mortality as a doorway to living fully, compassionately, and authentically, turning the inevitability of death into a profound gift for life.

“I want to die at sunset. I want to watch the sky change and turn orange and pink and purple as day dies into night. I want to hear the wind fluttering through the leaves and smell very faintly, nag champa amber incense, but very faintly, because scent can be tough on a dying body. I want to die with socks on my feet because I get cold. And if I die with a bra on, I’m coming to haunt everybody. I will terrorize you and that is a threat, OK? I want to die in my own bed, at my own home, with my loved ones nearby who are talking amongst themselves and comforting each other for this very big thing that’s about to happen in their lives.

I want to die with all my affairs in order so my loved ones have nothing to worry about but their grief after I die. I want to die empty, devoid of all of the skill, gift, talent and light that I carry in this body and satiated, full of the richness of this one unique human ride. And when my loved ones notice that I have released my last breath, I want them to clap. I want them to clap because I died well, but I died well only because I lived well.

Now, will it happen this way? Probably not. Realistically, I mean, even with all this rah-rah death talk I talk, I’m probably going to go kicking and screaming. Unless we choose, the date, place, manner and time of our death will remain a mystery.

Then why think about it at all? Death creates context for our lives. My entire life is leading up until that point. How we die creates the period at the end of the sentence, but it is the period that makes it a sentence at all. “

~Alua Arthur

https://youtu.be/IkeuKPZxEhM?si=bm0HNGZLhErLbM6j