There seems to be plenty of darkness in the news today, with riots in various places and the financial world panicking with the possibility of starting a new credit crunch... but bigger this time round.
My personal life is providing the perfect counterpoint: I just came back from a funeral, and I recently got the news that another relative that spent most of his life in a mental hospital has died. A starkly clear reminder that once things start to go wrong, they may well go wrong all the way.
But I can't say I'm in a dark mood. The funeral was in the same chapel as my husband's funeral, a little more than a year ago. The man that died was sitting two seats away from me on that occasion. It reminded me vividly of that time, but it wasn't a sad memory. It was beautiful. And the man that died had done his damnedest to cheer people up on his own funeral. His selections of poetry and music ranged from inspiring to enthusiastic to downright funny. That was very much like him, wanting people to be happy above all.
The best way to describe the feeling of the day was that this man clearly understood the ebb and flow of life, and was happy to go along with it. We're born and grow, the same way we breathe in, we get to whatever is our personal high point, then contract again and die, the same way we breathe out.
It reminded me of one of the oldest poems that have been recorded, from ancient Egypt:
Death is before me today:
like the recovery of a sick man,
like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me today:
like the odor of myrrh,
like sitting under a sail in a good wind.
Death is before me today:
like the course of a stream;
like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.
Death is before me today:
like the home that a man longs to see,
after years spent as a captive.
The first time I read this, it was in a comic that has Death as one of the main characters (The Sandman). And here you can see what's probably the best remembered page of the comic, perfectly suited for a day like today:
If everything goes to hell in a basket tomorrow... you still got a lifetime.
Well written, it is 11 years after but I hope you feel better. I also got this poem first via *the SandMan* by Neil Gaiman.
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