December 07 – Honoring the dead: In succession, visit a local hospital, a city morgue, and a cemetery … For this task, it is enough to silently visit the first two and observe them in reverence (though leaving some flowers in the lobby of each would be a nice bonus). Then, take a few gardening tools &/or some flowers to the nearest cemetery, find the least appreciated or “loneliest” grave there, and spruce it up. Make it Beauty-full, honoring the priceless Life it represents …

Bonus Activity: Say a prayer of Gratitude before departing the grave-site; for the glorious Life represented by the hyphen between that grave’s birth-date and death-date, and for that person serving your own Life by allowing you to Honor theirs.

This one was challenging because I came face-to-face with the unreasonableness of my own expectations.

First of all, I had envisioned entering a hospital bustling with people – it was almost empty. I had envisioned being questioned as to what I was doing there – no one even glanced twice at me as I strolled around the premises. And I had envisioned being able to at least see (if not visit with & extend some kindness to) ICU patients who are critically ill – Except for family members, this is not allowed at all.

So, with my visions for this task partially shattered, I was allowed to see the entire task anew.

I was able to extend Compassion to all the patients at the hospital, remembering that we are all, after all, dying. I was able to let the ICU nurse know that I at least wanted to visit with her patients, showing her that even strangers can Care (and that we can all Care for strangers). And I was able to leave the hospital knowing that alone my selfless intentions had been powerful gifts, reminding myself that, when it comes to acts of Kindness, there are no “small gifts”..

The next expectation that was crushed was my intended trip to a “city morgue”. With the aid of the all-knowing “Googlemaps”, it seems that there is no such thing here. Indeed, the very first “hit” I got when I typed in “morgue” as my destination was an Italian restaurant (now that’s some unideal marketing!) … When I typed in “funeral home”, I had much more success, though by the time I set out to get to it, all the funeral homes nearby were closed.

Sooooo, there was little left to do other than to close my eyes and envision being in direct contact with my innate mortality – I envisioned the inside of a morgue (oddly enough, the one in the movie “Men in Black” came to mind).  I also envisioned the times I had encountered death firsthand* – the stillness, the stiffness & the coldness of a body devoid of its founding life-energy. This exercise, while not as potent as actually being in the presence of a dead body, still allowed me to experience a reawakening of the pricelessness of all lives – including my own.

*Though I have “only” done so with animals, I currently feel a similar amount of affection for the members of the animal kingdom as I do for my fellow humans. As such, this particular envisioning proved quite effective …

Finally, today’s task-list called for a trip to a cemetery, and here (once again) life seemed to toy with my expectations. Finding a cemetery was a smooth endeavor, as “Googlemaps” redeemed itself by giving me the address to one dedicated to St. Francis (“Saint Frank” & I go way back). Getting there was also no problem whatsoever, and yet once I arrived, my plans began to unravel. I had envisioned a cemetery that was large and mysterious and unkempt; filled with tombstones adorned with introspection-inducing epitaphs.  As it turned out, my cemetery was located on a very small plot of land directly adjacent to a busy street. This made getting into the “right frame of mind” a bit more difficult. To make matters even more challenging, it was perfectly manicured. A few of the older graves had started to fall over, but they were sunk so deeply into the ground that I couldn’t even “spruce them up” by straightening them.

As such, just like in the hospital, there was nothing left to physically do there. And this allowed me to realize that these tasks were not really about doing anything – but rather are about reawakening to the abject pricelessness of my life, in this case by honoring another who no longer was living. So that is what I did – I took pictures of various graves and said a short-yet-intense prayer of gratitude. I did so not out of appreciation for my own life, but for rather for theirs; for all the wondrously kind things they did (everyone does kind things while alive), and for inspiring me to make my own life more Meaning-full.

Then I returned, refreshed in the knowledge that I can live a life that is more present & more passionate & more potent.

I can rededicate my life to caring for others, and I can fulfill that dedication every day.

Now all that remains is to take the next step …

See You when I see you …

… and until then, Be Now!

Scaughdt

Filed under: 366 Days of Kindness by Scaughdt