A Commitment to Compassionate Presence
Creating an atmosphere of universality and understanding in life and in loss
During the last several years of my life, I have grown personally and spiritually by recognizing connections in the universe that have helped me embrace different perspectives about life and death.
Perspective shifts may also occur because of events beyond our control that render our own assumptions about how the world is supposed to operate, obsolete.
My daughter Jeannine died in 2003 at the age of eighteen due to cancer. This event was certainly beyond my control, and over time gradually altered my beliefs about life and death and how the laws of the universe operated. Jeannine’s death had a profound effect on my belief system, more than any other previous loss due to death that I have experienced.
I once believed that relationships in the physical world ended at the time of death. However, shortly after Jeannine’s death, I received numerous signs of her presence. Over time, I interpreted these occurrences as an invitation to maintain a relationship with her, albeit in a different form. Once I began to understand that relationships could continue after death, I welcomed her signs and the opportunities that they presented to continue the bond that we developed on earth. However, at the beginning of my journey those signs were a bittersweet reminder of who and what I lost. Today her signs are a joyful reminder of what I have gained.
The challenges that I have experienced with Jeannine’s death turned into an invitation to embrace life by a different set of rules, rules that have allowed me to find clarity and a sense of purpose that I never thought possible. The rules that I once lived by did in fact, need to change. Otherwise, I could not have learned to thrive in the aftermath of catastrophic loss.
In the process of developing this new relationship, Jeannine became a wise spiritual guide who helped me see beyond the confines of death and develop a greater understanding of my place in the world, and relative to humanity in general.
Creating an Atmosphere of Universality
The understanding of my place in the world in relation to humanity was made clear to me in the days leading up to Jeannine’s tenth angelversary date in 2013.
During that time, I was drawn to Africa, a song by the rock group Toto. I watched a YouTube video of this song, which serendipitously was uploaded to this platform on March 1, 2009.
I listened to this song repeatedly, until this one passage suddenly registered with me:
She’s coming in 12:30 flight
Jeannine died at exactly 12:30 AM on March 1, 2003.
Needless to say, I believed there was a deeper awareness that Jeannine wanted me to explore.
After sitting with this discovery for a bit, I felt a nudge to surf the net regarding the song’s meaning and discover its relevance to my journey.
I came across a quote from David Paich, of Toto, about the significance of Africa.
“At the beginning of the ’80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn’t leave my head. I tried to imagine how I’d feel about it if I was there and what I’d do”
Paich’s statement was not only empathic in nature but demonstrated his willingness to bear witness to the challenges of a culture with which he had no prior experience. In bearing witness, he allowed himself to be emotionally moved and in the process, express compassion for the African people.
Compassion, if genuinely expressed, breaks down cultural barriers and in so doing, creates an atmosphere of cooperation and universality. In order to establish a compassionate presence for others, we must release any perceptions of uniqueness that we have. This process will reveal many teachings; teachings that we will need to own if we are to be part of a universalistic whole.
But What About Grief?
In addition to creating an atmosphere of understanding and inclusiveness with those from different cultural backgrounds, this same atmosphere needs to be created with those who grieve loss due to death in very different ways.
For example, many believe in the power of signs and other connections to adequately integrate their grief after loss. Others believe in the power of support groups or faith-based communities to help them navigate through grief. Others may believe that both supportive communities and embracing signs from their loved ones are necessary to effectively work through grief.
The path that a person chooses to walk after loss is his or hers alone. We don’t get to choose another’s path, nor tell him or her that the path we walk is better. Our sole responsibility is to seek understanding of the road that another person travels, and if we so dare, travel a mile of that road with them. During that time, we may discover that these individuals possess tools that can help us effectively walk our own road after the death of our loved ones.
Integrating these tools doesn’t require us to abandon our core beliefs. We can simply choose to assimilate those perspectives that create greater clarity within our existing belief system.
Exposure to other individuals whose beliefs may differ from ours, offer us opportunities to expand our thinking if we are open to it. Ultimately, we can all come together to create a beautiful mosaic of different yet ultimately connected individuals that make up the world in which we live, and the world in which we grieve.
Committing to a compassionate presence with individuals who are different from us, as well as individuals who grieve differently from us, has tangible benefits. If we are able to be genuinely present for others, we are capable of creating an environment where integrity, benevolence, and absence of ego rules. As a result, we create a world that comes closer to what we envision life on the other side to be like (provided that an afterlife is part of one’s core belief system). We create heaven on earth.
