Can Death Be A Beautiful Thing?

Carl Griffin tipped me off to a Rolling Stone article by Laurie Anderson.  If you don’t know who she is, she was married to Lou Reed.  I am not really a fan of Ms. Anderson, but liked a lot of Lou Reed’s stuff.

As rock and roll ages, it’s legends pass away.

She describes her relationship with Lou.  Then at the end, she describes the end.

Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, “That’s it. We have no more options,” the only part of that Lou heard was “options” – he didn’t give up until the last half-hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely. We were at home – I’d gotten him out of the hospital a few days before – and even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning light.

As meditators, we had prepared for this – how to move the energy up from the belly and into the heart and out through the head. I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou’s as he died. His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi. His eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved the most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn’t afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.

At the moment, I have only the greatest happiness and I am so proud of the way he lived and died, of his incredible power and grace.

I’m sure he will come to me in my dreams and will seem to be alive again. And I am suddenly standing here by myself stunned and grateful. How strange, exciting and miraculous that we can change each other so much, love each other so much through our words and music and our real lives.

Wow.

I have not had an experience like that.  Death scares all of us.  My friends Mike and Gina have had that experience.  They wrote a book about it, The Color of Rain, which I encourage you to read.  Because I knew Mike so well, I shed a lot of tears reading it.  You might too.

I got lucky and married my best friend, so I can hope to be lucky enough have an experience like that someday.  Have you had an experience like that?  Would love to hear about it.

The post Can Death Be A Beautiful Thing? appeared first on Points and Figures.