My husband’s Aunt just passed and we saw her the day before, small and feeble under the weight of the white hospital sheets.   It was her time and there was an odd peacefulness as part of it, that transcended our sorrow.

Death always provokes quiet reflection and an awareness of the vulnerability of life.  I find myself thinking about a strange array of nonsensical things, from the new milk that has to be tossed because it soured before its time, to my husband leaving for a business trip and wondering if I should change to an outfit I know he prefers on me better – what if this was the last thing he saw me in? 

But then I recall that Auntie began to let go eleven years ago when her husband passed.  She never wanted to do the things alone that they had done together.  She was waiting to join him.  This was a sad fact of how she lives her life, yet she had her wish and she was no doubt relieved.  We feel grief that she is longer with us, but since her health had been failing for some time, she’s no longer in pain and for that family feels relieved.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stage grief cycle for death, trauma or change doesn’t mention this, but I think another phase can be “relief.”  

I think of relief related to other experiences in my life, times when I really wanted something to work that failed or something I loved participating in that I wanted to continue, but it ended.  These are deaths of a sort.  And while there was a sense of loss and grief that accompanied those changes, a relief washed over me.  It was like being trounced by the ocean waves and then they receded and took with them certain responsibilities I had, leaving an empty space where something new could show up. And it always does.

The challenge is not hanging out for the wave, or even wearing a bathing suit in anticipation of it, but being willing to fully immerse yourself in life and not focus on potential endings or possible downs to your ups.  This morning for example, it started out grey and overcast and I was certain it would be another California June gloom day.  I was willing to make the best of it, but just now the sun has burst out in its glorious warmth.  Think I’ll go for a walk in it…