A Lesson in Dying

Death has been on my mind a lot lately. Not in an emo, depressing way, but in seeing it in a new light way. Oddly, I meant to write this post a couple weeks ago. Then the Boston Bombing happened and the Texas explosion and, suddenly, death jumped out from the recesses of my mind and appeared all around me.

It began with an in-depth conversation with my very close friend, Liz. She was tucked away in the Catskill mountains on a yoga retreat to reconnect with nature. Through her blissed-out Mother Earth haze, we began discussing life and death—a habit that harkens back to our college years of hours-long analyses on the meaning of life. We would have fit in perfectly with the questioning radical students of the 1960s, bra burning and tree hugging included.

One of her yoga students recently passed away at 30 from liver cancer.

“Oh my god, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Liz replied earnestly. “She is in such a better place now. She was in so much pain and now she no longer is.”

Liz—who, I swear, has the wisdom and clarity of a 98-year-old Tibetan monk—explained that life in our physical bodies on earth is very temporary. But our souls live on. Pain. Pleasure. Anger. Everything is temporary. So we must be grateful for the time we are given.

The teacher on her retreat posed this brilliant question: “How long after we open our eyes in the morning does it take us to say ‘thank you’?”

But do our souls live on? I wasn’t 100% positive until a few days later, when I saw the Long Island Medium, aka Theresa Caputo. I’ve obsessively watched her show all year. I even have my parents tuning in with me. If you’ve never heard of her before, she is a medium who connects with dead people. Her readings are unbelievable. YouTube some of her stuff and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. She’s on a national tour right now and when she came to my hometown, I jumped at the chance to see her. Thousands packed into a sold-out theater to witness her gift in person.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as Theresa walked through the aisles, describing events, people, and things in detail to several families that she would normally never know. There are no words to describe the evening and what took place. Mothers who lost their children clutched to Theresa as she passed on messages. One woman fainted after Theresa talked about her dead son’s wheelchair with a special license plate and his favorite cartoon, Sponge Bob. Men choked back tears after hearing their sons’ souls were still with them. Daughters burst into tears when Theresa expressed their fathers’ pride from beyond the grave.

Now, Erica, you’re saying, these all seem like generic messages any hack could whip up to scam people’s money. But it wasn’t random, simple stuff. Theresa recounted specific details of each person’s life, death, and ongoing conversations. I don’t have the time or finger strength to type each example, but trust me when I say there was no doubt she could talk to those who crossed over.

The most powerful and important thing I took away from the experience was this: Every message was positive. Every loved one was in peace and no longer in pain. Any medical or physical afflictions on earth dissipated after death, and there was only peace. The spirits of our loved ones endure all around us. They’re there for you and listening. Theresa made it very clear that everyone has a certain time to go, even if we feel it is too soon. They ran their life course.

I walked away that night truly not afraid to die anymore. In a way, death is a beautiful thing. It’s simply the next step for our soul. And what awaits us is pure peace, serenity, and love. It doesn’t get much better than that.

So send a prayer to all the Boston and Texas victims this week, and those still recovering. May peace be within all of them as it will one day be within all of us.