It has been 606 days since my last blog entry.
That is...
606 days
87 weeks
19 months
14,544 hours
872,640 minutes
52,358,400 seconds
Life has not stopped during all that time. So many situations have materialized and experiences have been shared on the journey to today. Here I am sitting down and writing again. What led me back to writing? This time it wasn't a hardship. So many of my previous blogs were dark and the culmination of some really difficult times. It wasn't something major or life changing. A lot has in fact happened in those 606 days since my last entry, but it was not any one of those things that brought me back to the desire to share my thoughts in writing.
I read a book. A simple book that with each paragraph got me thinking deeply about my own mortality and the life I have lived. A 200 page book led me to think about my own journey and the people I have met along the way, and even the people I never got a chance to meet. I began to think about the people that I may have had a connection with that I never even knew existed. This one simple book, a quick read, got in my head so much so that I am here today writing to you from the deepest part of my heart.
What do we experience when we die? This book. My God, this one simple book. The exploration of these concepts so simply expressed in one person's story, has so many answers, none of which may be truth. We will only know the answers to these questions when we are no longer living and able to talk about it. That seems unfair and at the same time perfect. We get to experience the end of days on our own and get to keep our truth to ourselves until the next person dies and joins us. Perhaps once we are in heave we can talk with our other deceased companions and share what really happens after our life in the physical world ceases.
Many times my best writing has been during the darkest, most painful points in my life. When my father died, when my biological mother turned out to be hurtful and someone I couldn't trust, and when I went through a divorce. My life has had some major potholes that have swallowed me whole, beat me up, left me bruised, and I used writing to cope. Those times seemed endless and so lonely, and I wish this book was recommended to me sooner.
Lesson One: We are never alone. We are never without purpose. We are always impacting someone else's life, even when we cannot see it or are aware of what we are doing. Every decision I make has an impact on someone else. Good or bad, every action affects someone else. And if you are feeling alone, remember that "Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know...The end of loneliness is when someone needs you, and the world is so full of need."
Lesson Two: Mistakes. The book also made me think about choices and mistakes. I used to beat myself up for not finishing college until I was an adult. I would silently think of myself as a loser; a person who was so smart but made such stupid choices. Mistakes. But perhaps it was not a mistake. If I had not left school when I did I would not have worked and had one more year with my dad. I had no way of knowing he would get diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and die three months later. If I had not worked I would not have met my ex-husband and if I had not met my ex-husband I would not have moved to Santa Monica. And if I had not moved to Santa Monica I would not have worked at the cemetery. You see where I am going with this? Working at the cemetery led me to the cemetery conference where I met Andy, which led me to moving to Baltimore, getting married and to the beautiful baby girl we have today. Every choice, even the ones that seem like mistakes, are right. They may be right for the day or the period of time in your life at that exact moment, or they may be right for the future and you just don't know it yet.
This book touched a part of me, deep in my heart and my mind, that I haven't accessed in a long time. It got me thinking about mortality and afterlife and heaven, which has led me back to thinking about my family. My friends. My husband. My kid. My coworkers. My Rabbi. My mom. I am thinking about the people left to meet in my future and all the possibilities that are waiting for me.
Thank you for the book that has opened me up to things I haven't thought about in so long. I feel a sense of clarity and calm that I have been missing for a while. You are right, I am a spiritual person, and this is exactly what I needed to get reacquainted with that side of myself.
