Recently, I heard someone say that living is the only condition with a guaranteed 100 percent mortality rate.
And, indeed, it would be a rare person who reaches adulthood, even early adulthood, without having experienced the death of someone important to them.
Sometimes I feel, as a part-time hospice worker, I think about death and the dying process a little more than most people. But I know that’s not true. Everyone thinks about death, whether in the choices we make (wear a seat belt, don’t drink and drive), our plans for the future, or our hopes and dreams for our loved ones. It’s deeply embedded in our consciousness, and some psychologists would argue that fear of death is a governing force in our life.
In Northern California, where I live, the last couple of decades have brought the proliferation of roadside memorials, the visual reminders of accidental death. My yoga studio is about five miles from my home, on a stretch of two-lane rural highway that is impacted by fog, wind, deer, and reckless, impatient drivers. Along those five miles there are at least four or five roadside memorials.
And recently, I’ve also noticed a trend in automobile decals that commemorate an individual’s life and death.
Several weeks ago, a friend died. I knew her as part of a group of friends, and she was a central figure, important as a friend, confidant, author, healer, and – for one newly married couple – a matchmaker.
Analea McGarey‘s death was both expected and sudden, intimate and remote. It was expected because we knew she was failing and treatment had been stopped. It was sudden because the changes started soon after she took a vacation with friends. Photos from the trip show her looking happy and vibrant. It was also sudden because she was only 58 years old. It was intimate because those close to her did an admirable job of keeping everyone updated as her condition and consciousness changed. But it was also remote for many of us, because in the final weeks of her life, she went to her mother’s house, in another state, and passed away there, surrounded by her family.
I felt a twinge of frustration during the final weeks, because, while we were relatively new and not intimate friends, I have cared for many people at the end of their life, most of them strangers. And I think that the people who know me best understand that physically helping – doing – is how I deal with my own emotions during tough times. This is also how I like to offer aid to others. So while I’ve bathed and cared for people in their very last hours, read and sang to them (from their own spiritual traditions, I might add), and sat silently, holding their hand, I could offer nothing in this situation. I could only be a witness, and that, from a distance. On the day that she died, unaware of her transition, I lit a candle in her honor, and taught a restorative yoga workshop, holding her in my thoughts.
Now, I like to think that my small candle flame helped her soul find the way to its next destination.
During the years I wrote professionally, especially in public relations, I wrote innumerable letters to be signed by others. I can honestly say, that each and every one of them was as equally concerned about the valediction – the closing of the letter – as with the content of the letter itself.
CEOs would cross out “Best Wishes,” and ask that it be changed to “Warmest Regards.” Other would cross out “Again, Thank You,” and write instead “Cheers”. It’s clear that people put a lot of thought into what they say on that final line, and it’s an intensely personal decision, even if the end result seems pretty standard.
Typically, I close my notes to close friends and loved ones with silly Xs and Os, to others I say more formally, “Be well,” and in a yoga capacity, I usually say “Namasté“.
Analea’s family and friends circulated this poem shortly after her death. She wrote it about a month after she began chemotherapy earlier this year.
I’m sharing it with you, with the permission of her son and daughter-in-law:
Danced in the Moonlight
No matter when I move out of this life, whether it be tomorrow or 50 years in the future, this is what I want everyone to know:
I have lived.
Fully and richly,
completely and absolutely.
I have lived juicy and followed my dreams,
danced in the moonlight and frolicked in the sunlight.
I regret nothing.
And, most of all, I have been blessed with love,
surrounded by the most wonderful souls in the world:
my children,
my mother,
my siblings,
my family of blood and my family of choice,
my dear true friends.
This life has been one magical blessing after another and I am so grateful,
so eternally grateful for every moment.
I am full and complete and joyful, so joyful.
crazy, free, and whole.
Blessed Be.
– Analea
I’ve been keeping this poem hanging above my desk because I knew I wanted to share this somehow.
And, this morning, I realized what I want to do. In Analea’s memory, I going to begin closing my posts, emails, and letters to friends, with a valediction that combines mine with hers. I’m not doing this because I want to be Analea or fill any part of her role among our friends. I’m going to do it as a tribute. It will be the metaphorical sticker on my car. Each time I write it, I’ll be extending, through my choice of closing, the wish that the recipient live their life without regrets and be, like Analea, full, complete, and joyful, crazy, free, and whole.
I may do this for months, or perhaps years to come. In her memory, I invite you to join me in this.
Namasté & Blessed Be.
“Blessed Be” is a Wiccan benediction. Using it to close posts and such may expose you to some problems from the more “vocally” Christian readers.
Just a advisory
Blessed Be
Jonolan – I researched the origin of this blessing before I posted.
As I said, it has been my honor to read and sing to the dying in their *own* traditions. I think this is the most honorable thing a person can do in support and remembrance, although I realize that’s not a universal view.
The two beautiful words “blessed be” appear throughout spiritual literature, so conjoined, including the Bible.
One of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
It’s my thought, as a writer, that “blessed be” is another way of conjugating “blessed are,” as in: May we all be blessed with love and held in the nurturing presence of the Divine, at all stages of our life, and however we find it.
Just beautiful. Thanks for this.
What a beautiful commemoration of what surely was beautiful life.
Thank you for placing the perfect phrase “blessed be” in a new context. As someone who completely identified herself with the pagan/Goddess tradition for many years and is now broadening her perspective on spirituality, I have struggled with finding a new closing for my correspondence. As much as I loved the simplicity of those words, I was not sure I was comfortable keeping one foot markedly planted in what I thought to be a particular path. Thanks for this opportunity to re-imagine the blessing that is the sentiment “blessed be.” It serves as a great reminder that there is still great value in those younger days.
Dear Suzi,
What a very small world. Analea was my neighbor on Warm Springs Rd. for 12 years. We referred clients and friends back & forth all of those sweet years. She was my good neighbor, massage therapist, sometimes doctor, confidant, peer and most importantly my friend.
Thank you for your inspired writing and for sharing Analea’s poem. Hopefully I’ll see you at the No. CA memorial.
Fondly,
Nancy (formerly, Barclay) Martin
PS
Please give my love to Joan Price if you see her.
Thanks for sharing. I knew Analea when she was a little brilliant happy girl, with long dark curls bouncing all over the place. Her spirit was sunny, and when she was upset, SHE WAS UPSET… Loved that little girl, then the McGareys moved away and she moved away.
I LOVE THAT POEM, HOW BEAUTIFUL. This was read at her memorial here in Scottsdale.
I am so happy to have known her.
God bless you, blessed be, etc.
Suni Papreotta
I had to fight back the tears while reading that poem. It is everything I’ve ever felt and want to feel. Thanks for posting it and I think Analea has put words to things I couldn’t express before.
Blessed Be.
Thank you so much for sharing this. All of the communications I have so gratefully received from Lisa have kept me and others here on Salt Spring Island closer to Analea. I met her about 20 years ago and was fortunate enough to spend time with her whenever she came to visit Salt Spring. We shared many belly laughs and intensely thoughtful moments. I will really miss her and will keep her poem to remind me of how to live my life. She was very blessed to have such loving friends and relatives around her. Blessed Be everyone. Kate
love the poem, thank you…..
as someone who has been through a few health scares, I decided a long time ago that I will not die an unlived life. if my life ends tomorrow, I regret nothing.
Dear Ones,
This was beautifully written with love coming through. I’m Analea’s sister-in-law Bobbie who conducted the service at Valley Presbyterian Church. I’m a Presbyterian minister as is her brother John.
We celebrated her life. She is held in the arms of her creator and dances through the flowers. Gladys kept telling her there was a new garden waiting her tending as she breathed her last and as Gladys told her to let go, it’s ok to let go. To be in the arms of one’s mother for her new birth….
I began the service saying..
This is where Gabe and Heather were married, We never thought we’d be here for such a reason as this.
It is a bittersweet time
It is bitter because we loved her so
It is sweet because we loved her so
and she loved us.
Life completed loved completely
Blessing to you all We are sisters through Analaea
Bobbie
Duncan, Oklahoma