As the end of life comes into view, one of the more unusual prospects to arise is writing one’s own eulogy. To do so would mean distilling a life into something no one else could write. It would mean trying to capture truth as well as admitting to ourselves we will die. It would mean culling limited facts from the whole picture and telling only a piece of our story—and maybe a one-sided one at that. Parsing oneself in this manner might not be appealing at all. But then, isn’t that the case with every eulogy? A eulogy can do great justice to the deceased. But to those who know us best, it can also fall short. It takes an uncommonly intimate friendship for someone else to capture the essence of a life. Even writing one’s own eulogy, there’s the same risk of never feeling complete because after all, one cannot step into the same river twice--or really, even once.
As for my own eulogy, I steer away from conventional measures. A eulogy written by someone else may be largely true, but no one knows us the way we know ourselves. I became less interested in writing something that fulfilled a common template and more interested in saying something about my personal journey from early youth all the way into adulthood and elderhood.
None of us is a tabula rasa at birth. What comes with us might have been something like a blueprint, or even a mission. I was given some tools, my genetic inheritance, education, life experience and conditioning. We make the most of what we’re given, but something more came with me that was not simply the product of the nuclear family and possibly not even part of a genetic package. A deeper process is at play. The early years are the primary journey, the first steps on an expanding path, assembling the internal structures of becoming an individual, establishing an identity, aligning our subjectivities in an objective world, assimilating the parameters of culture, the social contract, an initiatory process of finding one’s own voice and place. We could say the latter portion of life is spent going beyond that consciousness, beyond the self to the larger body and responding to the needs of the collective, even to the larger and deeper journey into universal love. We become the product of that infinite set of choices and design. Ultimately, if we are fortunate, we reach a pinnacle of unique grace expressed as our flawed, limited, yet perfectly honed and inhabited wisdom.
I could say I’m still doing both—becoming one apart and becoming One with, always negotiating separation and union, noticing the One and feeling the All. I ask whether I acquired the tools necessary to process that negotiation. It hasn’t been easy or fast. How did I use them? What were the issues before me to solve in this life? What (and who) mattered? What is left undone? Approaching the end of life is inevitably a time to look back and assess what that foundation was, what we built upon it, what we learned and what difficulties remain.
This approach may not appeal to everyone. In fact, I’m sure it doesn’t. In my lifelong flow, I’m required to acknowledge what is unfinished, and not likely to be finished. This consideration, paradoxically, allows me to relax, to surrender into realizing not only that not everything can be accomplished in a single life, but that I cannot even know what is included. What flows in me is just a small part of something much bigger, the journey in which we are living our flawed lives as temporary caretakers of one unique and highly nuanced thread of the vast and seemingly endless flow of human development.
In a culture addicted to competency, I can look at what we call accomplishments and see things I can claim, but the most meaningful ones don’t lie on any material scale. They lie in realizing a capacity for compassion, easy joy and unconditional love. In this realm, I see movement. It’s not worth the agony or any sense of incompletion to enslave ourselves to ‘what matters’ or whether we’ve had ‘enough time.’ Whether I believe in reincarnation is irrelevant because if reincarnation is not real, I will not be in any position to do anything about what is unfinished. If reincarnation is real, I will not be the identity I currently know, and I accept that what comes with that deal is completely forgetting all that has come before anyway.
Even though I may find reasons to say I am incomplete at the end of life, there is no reason for regret or recrimination. There is only time now for complete acceptance and continuous and deepening gratitude for the measure of this life I have been given. We’ve never had metaphysical certainty and expecting such a thing now is self-defeating. The denouement of life is no time to turn on ourselves with anything other than a tender regard for the magnificent banquet. No time for anything other than surrender, which is not really becoming passive at all. It’s coming to balance.
One of the things humans do is judge ourselves against the fortunes of others, their relative happiness and satisfaction compared to our own. We measure ourselves against the seemingly meaningless suffering that afflicts multitudes compared to the good fortune and relative abundance we enjoy. We can look at these others and say we have a better life. Doing so keeps us captive to our own illusions. All measures of status are illusion. They are part of the incessant subjective judgments we constantly make that become obstacles to our freedom and equanimity rather than solutions to our own suffering. No one is immune to them.
We all have our own versions of suffering and material comfort, and even especially highly regarded material accomplishments and the accumulation of vast wealth are their own versions of illusion. Regardless of where anyone might stand on any ladder of what this world regards as competency, we are on a journey just as difficult, driven just as much by illusion as anyone else. Wrestling with all this is an encounter with our own flawed narratives. It’s a good exercise in addressing those different voices and gradually coming to a satisfying and honest conclusion, free of personal hype, bypassing or sugar-coating, coming to rest in our own place in the human journey.
Ultimately, the framework I settled on for my eulogy diverges from the conventional. I decided it wasn’t about me. I decided it would become a litany of gratitude for the gifts I’ve received, who made the difference in me getting where I am. It runs from the love and care and support of my parents to the traits I received not only from them but from grandparents and ancestors long gone. They modeled timeless values…and flaws. I have the gift of siblings, including every tribulation and temporary estrangement. I was exposed to radically different cultures which permanently shaped my world view at an impressionable age. Educational institutions prepared me for a profession, including the gifts of working in that profession and those provided by my patients.
I also include the gift of being a parent, of having lifelong friendships that still nourish me on a regular basis. I have traveled far, enjoyed partners who each gave me immeasurable benefits--and suffering--including the honesty and positive regard and tolerance and fun and mischief and wisdom and pain, struggle, and awakening. My current medical condition has also been a gift in its own profound way. I am grateful for mentors and teachers and the wisdom contained in ancient traditions, for the opportunity to practice in a tradition which has given me the greatest gift of all, equanimity, the wisdom to see this life in its entirety as a uniquely abundant expanse of opening, integrity, and love.
I view all these sources of benefit as structural elements, the connective tissue facilitating and limiting an entire life, all that I came with, all I have been given, all I have become, holding me in ways I can barely describe. But in naming them, I can feel their presence as a supportive and benevolent totality, not as a container in a restrictive sense, more like a cocoon, or even an indestructible throne under constant formation. Metamorphosis has proceeded, regardless of whether I felt or knew it at the time. Upon my death, the moment when we give ourselves to everything, that metamorphosis, however incomplete, will be temporarily (or permanently) suspended. See you there.
Hey Gary - I do not have the words to share after reading your most remarkable, insightful blog about your thoughts and feelings about the end of life, your end of life? I have not had a chance to speak to you since out walk in Duke Gardens. It was beautiful day in a beautiful setting with you. I am glad that could happen.
So, here at a loss, I send you love and to your daughter and sweetheart and all your loved ones.
Your subtitle is perfect, " Love, Actually."
Kurt