It has just occurred to me that I wanted to write an article on death and purpose. Huh? The first one usually is not our favorite subject to talk about, right? I was told so many times that I talked about death very openly and my vision on it was unique. I know I talk about it openly, and it’s not the most common way, but not unique to me. You can ask what does it have to do with a photography site? It does. It’s not related only to photography, but it is also part of it. Read on, you’ll see why.
I accept that death is part of life. It makes life more valuable. Can you imagine what we would do if we lived forever. We would be so comfy, having the certainty that we always have enough time at our disposal. Life fortunately was not created like this. We must be very conscious about where we invest our precious energy and time. They all count. My favorite book on the subject is Michael Singer’s The untethered Soul. This is not a sponsored post, this is a book that’s truly worth sharing. I do share it wherever I can. There is one entire chapter dedicated to death: Contemplating death. That’s my favorite one.
M
y dad passed away in the Summer of 2016. It was very sudden. One afternoon he had a headache and the following morning he left this dimension. Death is one of the best teachers. Sure it’s one of the most uncomfortable ones, too. It really makes us question what life is about. It makes us humbled and makes us seek more. It makes us go in depths and heights we’ve never been to. The more we are truly able to BE with the experience with all range of emotions, the earlier we can realize that there is not only LOSS in grief.. Even if loss might be the first emotion to come up, there is also sadness, melancholy, uncertainty, unexpectedness, bitterness, surreal feelings, crying, remembrance, gratitude for the time we had together, gratitude for the ones we have here to share the experience with, love, energy, light, novelty, laughter on stories that come up and all the others that I didn’t mention…If we truly experience them without wanting to avoid any of the ones that come up, then they by themselves already create magic together! Attention: we are talking about emotions. They stay only for SECONDS or maximum MINUTES, then they leave. Why do we have the illusion that they are still with us MONTHS , YEARS or DECADES after? It’s because our mind continues with the thoughts, but that’s just a mental chatter. That’s a different story.
There is a point when we are ready to spread our focused attention to ask other type of questions, different ones than the well known loss related of why me? Why now? Why here? Questions like: Is there really only loss in death or is there any lesson I learned, a lessons it wants to teach me?
Does focusing only on what I lost help me? Does this help anyone else in my family? Does this make me go ahead easier? Is it the energy I would like to help spread in the world? Is it the state that the dear person who passed away would like to see me in? If the answers are NO, we are ready to go on. Other questions might appear, like how can I support my family and my loved ones? What did I learn from it? What can I be grateful for? What’s the sense of life? Who am I? Why am I here? What am I made of? How can I spread the light? What can I do to help others to sooth their experience in similar situations? Who do I have to become to be able to be the light for others, so that they can be lit up and shine as well?
Personally what I find true is that more I love, the more I grow, the better I become as a human being. More I serve others, the better opportunity I give to my dad to live through me and my adventures. That was not only the end, that was the beginning of something new. For sure I wouldn’t have chosen from free will, but if Life knew that was the experience I had to live in order to be able to grow even more, then I surrender to it. It’s my personal responsibility to live it and face it as it is and at the same time to make the best out of life for others and for me.
By now I know from experience that from his legacy what still count the most are the memories and experiences we lived together, more documented these experiences were on photographs and videos, the better it is. His portraits, the pictures we have of the two of us, the whole family and the art he created with his hands. All that really counts is this. The value of his pictures exponentially grew when there was no more opportunity to do another one in this physical world. Especially as I don’t have a lot of professionally taken of him and us together even if I this is my vocation and one of my passions. I learned the lesson and what I see in this is situation is not the pain, but the gift and the opportunity to create more for others! I know we take so many things for granted. I know the meaning of having those pieces after someone is gone, hanging with grace on our walls or being on the shelf. Just a smile of the loved person can remind us how blessed we are that we have/had them in our life. I still hear from people, NO I don’t want to have photos of me, let’s wait for the time when I lose weight, I will be like this or that, when I have time, when this or that happens etc.. Conditions, all conditions! What’s the purpose of not taking the opportunity now? We don’t know, we really don’t know how long we have the gift of being alive on this planet, and that’s the truth. I know even the bare idea of it can be so painful that we would like to avoid thinking of it, but that doesn’t change the facts. Why wait for special occasions, when we can create a special occasion for any and every day we want! Love, gratitude, celebration, togetherness, kindness, oneness don’t have any conditions! They are ALWAYS available and they FOREVER wait for us to claim them, to create them, to spread them like an epidemic, the more people are infected by all of them for the longer period of time, the better it is! That’s the pandemic the world needs!
Personally what I find true is that more I love, the more I grow, the better I become as a human being. More I serve others, the better opportunity I give to my dad to live through me and my adventures.
bri
This post was not created for an anniversary or any special occasion defined by culture. We don’t want to wait for the last moment to be our teacher do we? I felt it was time to write it because it has a purpose, not to create fear. The purpose was to face the truth and to wake up those who are still sleeping or still tired to see through the fog. It’s really time to BE, to act, to do, to step up, to shine the light on everyone, and we are proudly in service of that, it’s not limited only to business, it’s expanded in every area of life!
You are always more than welcome to share your experience with us!
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