"What can you do, death, against my eternity, my genius, my madness, my creativity, my music that will live forever?"— David Bowie
Most of us aren't very well known, but many of us still would like our works to make a difference while alive. Only a few people will have their work live on after their deaths. In the end, our work might only help ourselves, but that is enough.
Recently, my dog died of lymphoma. He ended up completely blind and covered in tumors. It was devastating for us.
It reminded me of my own cancer scare or brushes with death in the past. If cancer was confirmed, I told myself that I would do hospice, but I struggled with making a choice. I didn't feel like I was done in this life yet. I'm sure none of us ever are.
"If in this hour thou shouldst die, is it not written, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord"? Yea, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!"—Liber HHH
This is from one of my books:
"A woman is deep with her own sea of sorrow, and sometimes her experience must plunge her to equal depths for her to know her footing. An ordeal can take you to the brink of drowning. After writing this chapter and considering the above, I soon found myself facing the possibility of my demise a little too closely, and this is what I wrote:
So these past 2 weeks or so, I've been planning my Last Will, thinking about death and dying, thinking what foods I'd like to eat, songs I'd want to listen to, people I'd miss, etc. Simple things and not so simple things. I'm a Capricorn, kind of serious, kind of expecting the worst. After all, the doctor talked about staging. That couldn't be good. If it were that bad, would I have a few months to live, a year, 5 years, 10? It was like a game of chance. Let me roll the dice and see.
Then yesterday, I'm sitting in the doctor's office alone. White, cold walls. Nurses whisper and I can't hear them. I said, Ok, death. Is it time? Are we going to do this soon? Saturn and I are old friends. I remember encountering him when I was 6, sitting in a car that was filling up with murky water during a hurricane. The water was over my sandals, up to my ankles, then my knees, going higher. My mom was just sitting there as if in shock, and my sister and I were crying in the backseat of the blue Pinto. I took my seat belt off, squatting on the seat to escape the cold water and knowing I couldn't swim. I remember being mad at my Mom, though unfairly so, and it kind of taught me that in life, you are on your own to sink or swim. Well, I couldn't swim, and the water was still rising, so I was trying to come to terms with the possibility of dying. I just waited for Saturn to take my hand, but it wasn't time yet. Strangers came and pulled us through the car window and carried us to safety.
"A gateway is my entrance and there Saturn stands in his dark robe, veiled so that none shall see his face, for his face is too bright for mortal eye, and so many say he is evil, but he is a great one among the gods, for his sickle cuts the soul from the body." – Maiya Tranchel Hayes
Back to the present, the radiologist comes back in, says she has to do the other side now. She saw something on the right side too. I wasn't expecting that. Ok. What else can you say? After the test, she left again, and it's like your life is no longer in your hands, but in the hands of the person deciding in the next room if you have cancer or not, and you have no say in the matter. This is it. I had to ask how I felt about that, if I was ready to leave this all behind, to picture myself gone and buried, and onto the next adventure. So, I took a deep breath. Once again, I held out my hand to Saturn. I'm not clinging to life, I tell him. I'm either here or not here. Cold air touched my fingertips, but he did not take my hand. At that moment, the radiologist came back in and said some faceless doctor, who never even bothered to come into the room to see me, decided it wasn't cancer. So, I just made peace with death and now I must make peace again with life? Like they say, the third time is the charm, so I nodded to what I couldn't see and said, "Until next time."
Of note, I didn't understand science at the age of 6, and did not understand that the water level inside the car would have equaled the water level outside the car. Since it was up to the bottom of the car window, the water rose to that exact height within the car and held steady. In my mind, it was going to rise to the roof, and perhaps if the flood outside continued, that might have become the case, but it didn't.
In all things, the inner has to match the outer. My ordeals will match my depths. —my book, X Vasa
"Just like that bluebird now, ain't that just like me? Oh, I'll be free, just like that bluebird. Oh, I'll be free, ain't that just like me?" —David Bowie
I use the name Soror Syrinx for my nonfiction. My personal motto is Soror S.P.V.A., Suis propriis volat alis, I fly my own wings.
Whether in life or in death, or in the realm in between, may we face whatever is before us to the best of our ability. And trust our wings to get to where we strive for. Do what you love for yourself and your loved ones. Anything after that is a bonus.