Recently I heard the news that an old friend had died. She was a colleague who became a very dear friend when I lived in Melbourne many years ago.
We had been very close at the time and, for many years, had stayed in contact. We had had much less contact in the last 8 or 9 years, but I still considered her a dear friend.
I had been meaning to contact her, as she kept popping into my mind over the past couple of months. But I hadn’t done it. Then last week I saw a mutual friend posting on facebook about her death.
One of the first things that hit me was a feeling of regret that I hadn’t contacted her. I checked our facebook messenger thread and saw we were last in contact in 2018 – 5 years ago.
Not so very long ago I had an intuitive nudge to contact friends as they came into my mind, as they so often do. Having lived around the world, I have friends scattered far and wide, and also many I now have little or no contact with. This nudge at the time told me to connect to them when I thought of them. This was great for me as, so often, I get caught up in the balance of working and parenting and forget much of anything else.
Now, when I heard the news about my friend, I initially felt guilty that I hadn’t made the effort sooner. I saw, when I checked her facebook, that she had been dealing with very serious health issues recently. And I thought “if only” I’d followed that nudge when it came to her.
BUT the regret and guilt didn’t last long. Because I realise you can’t live like that. We can’t constantly be checking in on everybody all the time, just in case something happens to them or us. Sooner or later, something is going to happen. To them or to us. Both, eventually.
Not so long ago a client was struggling because they too felt they hadn’t made enough effort with a friend, who then died very suddenly and unexpectedly.
But we can’t constantly be thinking everyone around us is going to die and we must be around them and speak to them as much as we can. There is most certainly the need for more death-awareness. A need for people to stop taking their own longevity, and that of others, for granted, and live with the awareness that each day is a gift and you haven’t been guaranteed a certain number of gifts at all. But it’s also no good to be living in total fear of death and making all decisions from that fear.
Don’t let the idea of death startle you into frightened action. This takes you out of presence anyway. Instead be death-aware, and allow that awareness to bring importance and love to each day.
This friend who died was someone who made the most of her life, despite physical disabilities and many difficult challenges throughout her life. I will let her death be a reminder to live.
