There was a happy ghost wandering through the hallways of my little cottage on the river yesterday. She paused at a hand-made pot, remembering when her son had gifted her with it years ago. There was the bookshelf full of books she had loved. She passed her hand over the colorful antique knit throw on the sofa—what a find that had been. The happy ghost chuckled over the secret the draped throw so artfully kept: a corner of the couch nibbled to a nub by one of the dogs when he was just a pup. As she meandered, she sighed in wonderment at what she had made of her life: nothing fancy–no mansion, no fame. But at the same time, so much more than she’d ever dared hope for: the sense of having fulfilled what she had come here to do.
Then, turning the corner, the happy ghost stubbed her toe and remembered that she was still here, embodied: felt her life come throbbing back into her from the sole up. And could not help but ask the question: Walking around my house weeping for joy as if I had already passed…Is this normal?
Perhaps I’ve experienced one death too many recently. A number seem to have slipped away while I was looking the other direction. The blustery professor who once held sway over so many receding into the shadows of an assisted living facility with nary a whisper to mark his final passage. A t’ai chi instructor admitted to hospice, only his inner circle in attendance to witness his passing. The dramatic narratives of their lives had ceased demanding our attention, quieting down but not over: the distillation of their lives still radiating each particular and unique essence through the sheer conjuring of a name.
Becoming one’s self is not as easy as it seems–although these two, and so many more who are gone but not forgotten, made it look effortless. Each released the importance of their egos—whether by choice or by circumstance—disappearing into the flow of life. This we, too, begin to practice every time we intuit that it no longer matters whether we are radiating our essence center stage or in an intimate salon; every time one savors the present moment in a pause, so redolent, so embracing of all of life, including the stubbed toes and imperfection, the veil between ourselves and Presence dissipates, as delicate and precious as gossamer.
So that was what the happy ghost was doing in my house: practicing. Having loosened the grip on so much of what I used to believe defined me, and yet something remains: the silken threads of my final attachments–that which has taken a lifetime to realize is most precious. Attachment to what? A clay pot? A nibbled couch? No, not the things, themselves. Not the pause nor even the promise of what is yet to come. But rather: how good it is to be alive if only we let it.
Excerpt from Older, Wiser, Fiercer
