The meaning of life changes when you sit with death.

I stood by my mother as she took her last two puffy breaths. That moment was an end to an era. There were no older generation left before me. I was now a family elder. My life was about to change. For the previous 8 nights and days, I had stayed with my mother at the hospice, witnessing the ending of life. Sitting with death, the meaning of life began to change for me. I saw that in the end, the only things that mattered were love, inner peace and trust in the Divine. Everything else became a non-issue. This new awareness lead me to evaluate my own life and make some changes.

Of course, in the midst of it all, I was too engaged in the moment to contemplate and process the experience. I was in the middle of an emotional storm; busy getting through it in the best way that I could.  The Hospice house around the corner from my house was full so we ended up in one that was 30 miles away. To be with my mother on her last days, I had to put just about everything else on hold. I cancelled all my appointments and rescheduled the radio shows and moved in to her room at the hospice. Other than 2-3 hours a day when I would go for a walk, eat and refresh, I lived in a sort of seclusion. My connection to others was mostly (more…)