part0012

“Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.” ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Those final moments of wakefulness with ourselves and others give us the crux of Buddhist teachings–it is indeed temporary and we are impermanent.

When Shyla’s health began to fail, I knew it was time to make a move. As I mentioned earlier, we had been living remotely for over ten years together and she was fourteen, which is quite old for a large Shepherd mix. Our chop wood, carry water lifestyle was a blessing in so many ways, but it dawned on me one day as I pushed the wheelbarrow full of our day’s shopping up the hill, that there may come a time when Shyla wouldn’t be able to make the eighth mile journey up the sweeping slopes to the cabin.

I had already needed to get help for my wood gathering for the past few winters, so my days of being able to live like this were numbered as well. Our search for a new home began in the summer of 2011 and, as I mentioned previously, my prayer became, “Thank you for my good friend Shyla. Thank you for guiding me in how to best care for and love her as she finds her way to You.”

That prayer began a deep and meaningful path of transition for Shyla that helped me companion her to her final breath in the Winter of 2012 in the bedroom in our new home. We had searched for over a year and half for our new home and for reasons beyond comprehension, we landed in a dwelling that far exceeded my hopes and desires.

Shyla had a stroke that left her dizzy and unable to walk straight. Within a week, she had seemingly fully recovered and our life continued. Within another week, she had another stroke that rendered her unable to walk on her own. This signaled the final few days of her life and triggered my natural instinct to care for her tenderly while reading up on the Buddhist traditions for the dying.

Shyla and I had helped care for my father and were present for his passing some ten years prior. She had an innate sense of his passing as we lay next to his bed while he took his last breaths. I knew that I would be doing the same for Shyla, both as her companion in life and companion on the spiritual path.

The next days were filled with setting up an altar close by her; consulting with my dear friends, one of which was her veterinarian; tending to her bodily needs; and prayer and meditation according to the Buddhist practices. I spent many hours next to her doing Metta (loving kindness) meditation for her.

My emotions oscillated between companioning her final spiritual journey and experiencing the loss of my best friend. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve had to do. In the end, when I knew it was close, I had to decide whether to meditate or lay with her and hold her. My partner had lain with her through most of the night while I meditated, but he needed to go to bed. Torn, I let the meditation go because I couldn’t imagine her passing without being held and touched by me.

As I lay next to her, her breath began to change into a rote repetition that was almost machine like. I knew we were close. The minutes passed and her breath began to slow down. I stroked her gently not wanting to disturb anything, but still wanting to hold space with her.

As her breath wound down, I kissed her on her forehead, as I had done a million times before. In that instant, her body jerked up and away from me like it was being pulled, or she was pulling away from me. This startled me and I pulled back as she lay back down. It was her last breath.

The tears flowed instantly, not out of loss of my friend, but out of the incredulous understanding of what I just witnessed and experienced. The past 14 years of my life were a gift of this incredible being’s life–the joy, the love, the wisdom and understanding, the gamut of our experiences. But, in her final days, I received the gift of being consciously present with her for her passing. She gifted me her life–and now her death .

I laid with her for many hours and cleaned her body and prepared it according to scripture. I laid with her until it was clear in my body that she was gone and I was no longer with Shyla, but with a corpse that lay lifeless.

In some traditions it is believed that the 72 hours following death is the period of time it takes for the soul to leave the body. In honoring these traditions, I experienced the decay of her body over the next few days before taking it to the crematorium. In certain Buddhist traditions, it is common for monks to practice meditation in charnel grounds, so as to become acutely aware of the temporariness of the body. I used this opportunity to deepen my practice as well as honor my lost friend.

There was a heightened sense of awareness and wakefulness during this period that is unexplainable. I can say that directly experiencing Shyla’s death was one of the most profound and important experiences of my life, as was being present for my mother’s and father’s last breaths.

It makes me wonder if it is the same as attending a birth, since I have neither given birth nor attended one. I believe, though, that they both are portal times of significance. Equal? It’s hard to say from this end–that of which loses the being. In any case, creating a mindful and dignified container of compassion, whether it is for another’s or our own death, seems to me to be one of the most gracious and giving things we can do on our journey.

I recently read a piece that was written from the perspective of a fetus on the eve of its birth and how all the significant signs and events that we would see as indications of the birth coming, it was seeing as its death–leaving the amniotic sac and the warmth of inside the womb and having to begin breathing air and feeding through a mouth–these were all signs of the end of its life as it knew it. Much like that with the life cycle of a caterpillar–it may seem like the end, but it may be just the beginning of a transformative awakening.