ON DEATH AND DYING

I was with my uncle down in Kentucky some years back as he was dying. He was a good man, very devout but not a fanatic about it...he was fun.

I've always been puzzled about his death. To my mind and in my opinion, he died angry. Angry at most everybody...at his wife, whom he adored, but she'd either said or he'd interpreted her as saying that he might as well let go, i.e., die, because otherwise he'd use up all the money hanging on to life and leave her broke. Then, they'd hired a couple of nurses to be with him, one black, the other white, and his long-ago bigotry popped right back, alive and sick. And one of his former teachers who had never married, and with whom he'd shared a long friendship, came to visit him fairly often during his final illness, and he enjoyed her visits. But as he was dying, his remarks to others about her unmarried state were really ugly.

All of that was brought to my mind this morning through this passage in the Gita about death: "... the content of the mind at the hour of death directs the soul in its journey to rebirth. Thus the mind influences the evolution of the soul as it moves into the next life. Whatever a person thinks about in life -- his or her deepest motivations -- are likely to be the last thoughts at the time of death. So there is a continuity between this life and the next, and all the baggage of desire and motivation goes right along with the soul."

And here's (to me) the most important part: "To ensure he will focus his devotion on [God] at the hour of death, he should make a practice of remembering him continually now...learn to focus his being on [God], then naturally at the time of death he will think of nothing else. Otherwise, in the chaos of death, he will panic and lose his way."

All of that is by way of saying, we keep coming back until we get it right...or at least that's what I've long believed. And the way to get it right is to focus on our thank you prayer...practice it, focus on it, breathe it. "Thank you"...and that is all.

Thank you.