A couple of years ago I blogged regularly about my Year to Live project. The 365 day experiment profoundly changed the way I think about life, even to this day. Every once in a while, something fantastic and year-to-live-y grabs my attention and makes me want to jump up and share it with you.
This month marks a year since my one year to live project came to an end. And a year since my close childhood friend Marisa died of metastatic breast cancer…. I have some good news to share. I’ve just come back from Marisa’s brother & sister-in-law’s baby shower. Marisa would have been an amazing aunt to this little one, and I like to imagine her smiling at all of us.
What I did not write about was the all-too-real end-of-life journey of my earliest childhood friend Marisa, who was courageously facing metastatic cancer while I went about my hypothetical journey.
Unbelievably, I’ve arrived at the end of the Year to Live project. I’ve learned from others that the “dissolution of the body” meditation which symbolically closes the class is a powerful one. Frankly, I’m scared of it. One person I know who experienced it said that this exercise is so visceral that he actually lost control of some, ah, bodily function when he did it.
For the past 85 years, my family has been handing down the skeletal remains of someone we call Felix. While this may sound sinister or downright peculiar, let me assure you that Felix holds a cherished position in our family. He’s a silent but reliable teacher and a master at imparting lessons of impermanence…
I longed to be grounded once again in the reality of my everyday life. The familiar messiness. These very piles of paper. My work. The cacophony of street noises on my New York block. The personalities that drive me to distraction.
I wanted to ask if she might like to have lunch someday. I felt nervous and 17 again. Thankfully she beat me to it. That’s how I came to be seated in the dining room of her orderly, yet cheerful, northern NJ condo.
Amma, otherwise known as the “Hugging Saint,” is an Indian woman — a divine spirit by some accounts — who is said to have the power to transmit a spark of unconditional love and compassion through her embrace. People came from all around the country to stand in line to see her; surely I could travel 40 blocks.