Death
One week after the bombing, on the 17th of September, my daring little rabbit, Mocha, died. I felt so much sadness over my rabbit's death I was unable to do much of anything that week. She was a quiet presence in my life from the last nine years. She loved to eat herbs and phone cords. She chewed on all our furniture, bite my dogs on their toes, and loved to stretch out is the afternoon sun. I loved her very much.
I've been thinking about death a lot this last month, wanting to address it in the article, but feeling weary and weak when I sat down to write about it.
Actually its been more than a month that I've been thinking about death. In May I sat with my mother in law as she died of cancer. She died as she had lived with peacefulness and grace. I stopped being afraid of death as I sat with her and held her hand. She was surrounded by her loving family and her death was one of the most beautiful things I have been blessed to witness. Since her death its been on my mind.
Death is a part of life. For a lot of us death is a shushed topic that isn't discussed. Death in movies and on TV is portrayed as something scary and full of darkness, pain, and images of the grim reaper. Also movies and TV have given us a distorted view of death (and violence) we see people get killed and then next week we see them staring, alive and well, in another show. The finality of death is a difficult concept to grasp. I'm still having troubles with it.
This time of year is a time of death. In autumn plants die, trees lose their leaves and settle into the little death of winter. At Samhain (pronounced Sa -vain, and better known as Halloween) the Pagan Sun God dies. His part of the cycle is complete and only by His dying can we be insured of the coming spring. The cycle begins at Yule (Winter Solstice, approx. Dec. 21-23) when the Moon Goddess is strong and gives birth to the Sun God. He grows and at Imbolc (Feb.1) we can see Him gaining strength by the lengthening of days. At Vernal Equinox (approx. march 21-23) the Goddess and God, Day and night, are equal.
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