Practice Makes Perfect: Mastering the Art of Dying (Sort Of)

I ain't never seen a hearse with a spring chicken or a luggage rack.

I don't usually start my newsletter this way.

But today, I realized that many of our community members are new and don't know me. If we were to meet in person, here’s what you'd find out: I am a daughter of immigrants, a wife, mother, and grandmother who retired a few years ago from a 35-year career supporting the Department of Defense. I didn't particularly like the job, but I did it anyway because I had children to raise and bills to pay.

I practice writing now, like I do yoga, trying to learn about myself and what we all have in common. Before I started this path in earnest, I had an interim career as a yoga instructor for people in recovery from substance use disorder. I was astonished to discover this was my heart's work, but it ended when COVID-19 hit. That job inspired me to begin my sobriety journey.

Currently, I teach yoga at a Jersey Shore retreat house for women with cancer, which also touches me deeply. I also raise monarch butterflies in the summer and released my last two of the season a few days ago.

Now, on to this week's post.

AARP welcomed me when I turned 50 with a laminated card and a monthly magazine, but there was no new club when I turned 60.

Why not, I wondered. Sixty seemed significant.

Since then, I have considered myself in a new phase--the young end of being old. It sounds like a word salad, but I differentiate degrees of age and antiquity. However old I am is always the best age to be. (Please check back with me in ten years to discover how I jooj up 70.)

When something goes hinky in my body, I attribute it to aging, an attribute becoming increasingly vocal. My chiropractor shrieked, "You're not old!" when I declared it the other day when discussing the possibility of arthritis in my ankles and knees. Those pains weren't arthritis, but I still stick to my claim that I'm no spring chicken.

As a non-spring chicken, my appearance has changed, and my body creaks. Feathers are missing. As much as dying has not been on my mind for most of my life, I acknowledge that I have less road in front than behind and that the road will end.

I've witnessed how short life is for family, friends, and even children who are no longer here, and there's no reason to think I'm special.

You see, I'm going to die, and so are you.

I say it not to bring you down but to coax you to prepare for it. The more we avoid the subject, the more it becomes an actual pebble in the shoe, perhaps even gravel, sliding around and zinging us when we least expect it.

What I don't want to do is spend the next three or four decades worrying about it. It's non-negotiable and headed my way, so I may as well figure out how to handle it. I may not have been a model for living, but maybe I can do some justice for how I will die.

I don't want to be surprised, mad, scared, or fight it when it happens. I want to go down easy. Fear of the unknown and what happens after we die is no joke, but there has to be a way to have a beautiful death.

Can you live the remainder of your life with purpose and authenticity, knowing that you don't know when your story ends but that it will anyway?

The good news is I have discovered the Tibetan Book of the Dead. No, I'm not reading it because it's too dense for me to understand. Instead, I'm listening to a lecture by Andrew Holecek, who has read and studied Buddhist philosophy and does a great job explaining it to householders like me.

The book proffers to practice dying. Buddhists spend much time practicing for a good death. It makes sense that if you want to get good at something, you must first turn your attention toward it.

"If you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die." Ancient inscription carved above the door of St. Paul's Monastery on the secluded Mount Athos peninsula in Macedonia, northern Greece

How does one practice dying?

Meditation is a way to practice dying.

Long-time community members are yelling right now, "Dang it, girl!" They’re sick of me because I’ve been a broken record promoting meditation as the answer to many of life's vexing problems.

My friend at Inner Resource Institute talks a lot about the positive benefits of meditation in his newsletter The Dawning Light .

The Tibetan word for meditate is "gom," or to become familiar with. We meditate all day long as we tend to things. Wherever our attention goes, that's where we have "gom." (Sorry, low-hanging fruit.)

By meditating, we shift from the exterior and focus on the interior, drawing attention from and shutting down (or at least trying) the external noise.

The outer world, including our bodies, will disappear when we die. Don't worry, though; the external is not us.

Because we identify with our bodies too much, we suffer for it. Sure, we want to keep the body healthy and working well, but being healthy is the slowest way to die.

And that’s good, right? Please stop participating in the ubiquitous anti-aging mass marketing campaign that’s designed to make us feel bad about ourselves.

We’re pro-aging all the way.

Aging means you’re still here. Treating your body as a friend is one thing, but giving in to desires and cravings means we are ruled by our physical form. The body should never run the show, but it sure tries.

To what degree are you identifying with the physical world?

Take a minute to answer these questions.

Do you use or do you have:

Botox

Plastic surgery

Makeup

Hair dye

Teeth whitening

Fashionable clothing

Luxury Cars

Fancy Houses

Vacation Houses

Collections of objects

None of those things are problems, but they indicate what we're meditating on: staying young, looking beautiful, status, wealth, collecting things, etc.

All are temporary.

When my mom had dementia, I was shocked when she stopped caring about her possessions. On the low end of the hoarding scale, she still amassed a house bursting with treasures. Her things were a part of her identity. Yet, in a flash, the house and everything in it became meaningless to her.

She never mentioned those things again, and she lived another seven years without them.

When we die, we won't bring anything with us. No one will see our highlights or super white teeth in the dirt.

"I ain't never seen a hearse with a luggage rack," sings George Strait.

We will leave everything behind. Consider embracing and practicing what's coming for us. How can you die a little bit today?

"To the well-organized mind, death is the next great adventure." J.K. Rowling