After years of reading death and grief literature, as well as consuming podcasts, videos, social media content, and conversations with friends and colleagues, it becomes hard to recall what ideas are mine and which have been sourced from un-remembered seas.
There is also the fact that I believe all ideas originate from a well which we all have access to, and so there are no thoughts which are not shared with our collective in some form.
Anyhow, to ramble and begin, this is one metaphor I share when speaking about my own death and that of others. I may have written about it before but here I will share it again because I would like to.
We begin our lives as huge boulders.
For many of us, if we are lucky, from the moment someone becomes conscious of our conception we have an influence that exceeds our physical presence by magnitudes. Even the idea of us is powerful, heavy, has a gravity that pulls in our parents, siblings, and communities.
Taking myself as an example.
I am a 33-year-old woman with no children of my own yet. I do have two parents, two sisters (and a brother-in-law), a niece and a nephew, a partner, and more friends than I can count on my fingers and toes (what luck!). To boot I also have many aunts, uncles, cousins, and chosen family. In short, I am a pretty big boulder.
I think of the moment of death as our boulder landing into a deep pond and settling to the bottom with each one that came before.
If I were to die tomorrow, by some twist of fate, my boulder would create a ruckus. It is so big and moving with so much inertia - it would *crash* and *splash* into the water. Everyone who knows me would get soaked. The quiet surface of the water would ripple and bubble long after my boulder exited from view. It would take many minutes for the waters to settle, and it might take hours for the surfaces to become fully dry again.
What a lot of fuss that sounds like.
Now, let us imagine that I am permitted to live a long life with many more chapters as yet unseen. My boulder continues down this rocky path to the inevitable splash and settle. Over the years it bounces, rocks, and is gradually chipped away by this journey.
Bang, boom, chip, crack.
Until one day, let’s say I’m one-hundred-and-two years old, my small pebble that was once a boulder launches off its final cliff and into the water. I fall asleep cozy in my bed one night and do not rise with the sun the next morn.
*plop*
There are still ripples, those of my great-grandchildren, of my now-grown-and-also-elderly children who recognize that they will be the next to take this natural leap.
There is however, a different quality to this ending. There is a gentleness, a calm, and a quicker restoration of peace.
In the past I have shared this metaphor when I am sitting with a family following the loss of an elder. Often it comes up when someone had pre-planned for a somewhat elaborate funeral with catering and flowers, only to discover that there aren’t many folks left to attend.
I might say something along the lines of “some of us are lucky to live long enough that there’s no one left to come to our funeral”. Then I might deploy the boulder metaphor.
It is my hope that the planning I have done will help to restore calm after my death. That the plans I have in place and the work I have done to communicate my wishes are kind of like giving my family a towel or a bit of sunshine to dry off in.
At the end of the day we do not get to choose our endings, they come to us when it is time whether we are a mountain-sized boulder or a pea-sized pebble.
I suppose that it came to me to share this today because it is the beginning of a new year. A year where we will all be tumbling and rolling and hitting unanticipated bumps along the way. It feels good to remind myself that I am on a journey determined by fate and gravity.
This is also the first post I am sharing as an audio file as well. My style of writing may not feel overly readable for some, I am admittedly quite wordy and often reverse the format of my sentences from what is supposedly correct. This is feedback I received often in university anyhow. I hope that it conveys well via audio, at least.
That is it for now.
Happy new year to my fellow boulders, pebbles, and jagged rocks. May your path be rocky and your landing calm and resolute.
Emily
