I recently began reading Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Rinpoche draws lessons from Tibetan Buddhism to teach readers how to live well - so that they may learn how to die well.
Impermanence is a recurring theme in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It is, in fact, a recurring theme in all major world religions. Rinpoche says, “It is important to reflect calmly, again and again, that death is real, and comes without warning.”1 Paul says “…for the things seen are for but a season, but the things not seen are of the Age.”2 Muhammad (PBUH) says, “Be in this world as though you were a stranger or a traveler.”3 And when my mom first told me she was dying, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Everyone has to go.”
I was mostly just angry when she died. Angry, I suppose, that it wasn’t universally understood what a dying body smells like. That not everyone had been woken up in the middle of the night because their mother, totally unconscious, had shit the bed. That not everyone had seen their mother crawl on her hands and knees when she stopped being able to walk. Seen her skin stick to her bones. Seen her dress spotted with blood and vomit. Everyone who said that at least she was no longer in pain was not around when she was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and asked me to pray for her - she was more afraid than she’d ever been - because she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to. And yet, of course, she did. It is a fight none of us win.
I am less angry now. I know the weight of a life in a way I could not have possibly known before she died. I think of the guided meditations I performed religiously when she was first diagnosed, telling me to observe a thought or hear a sound and then simply - let it go. Everything goes just like that - leaves in the wind, a season in an age, travelers passing though.
It’s summer now and summer always reminds me of my mom. Soon after she died, I had a dream that it was winter and I was back home. My mom was on her bed, reading from a blue and golden book she owned, a book written in a language that I don’t understand. She was wearing her glasses. The curtains were pushed open and I was looking out the window. It was perfectly white outside. Everything was covered in a fresh sheet of snow, unmarred by tire tracks or dirty soles. Nothing else happened. We didn’t even talk. We were just in the room together, her reading and me looking out the window. And when I woke up, thinking of that image of undisturbed snow made me emotional. Winter seemed so far away. Summer was weighted with her death and winter was the farthest I could get from it.
My dad has been forgetting things lately. He forgets what month it is and whether he’s taken his pills yet. He gets dizzy spells and is afraid to drive at night now. My brother called recently and asked if our dad seemed more confused as of late. He said we should talk about our options if I notice further signs of mental decline.
I know my body will fail me one day. And I know that my dad’s body will fail him too. And I can’t phrase it in a way that isn’t already obvious but - we were always going to die. It helps to know that.