Beautiful mystery

Most people don’t die at once… they died a bit at a time.

People die in bits and pieces.  A series of petit morts.  Little deaths

They lose their sight, their hearing, their independence.

Those are the physical ones.

But there’re others.  Les obvious, but more fatal.  They lose heart.  They lose hope

They lose faith.  They lose interest.

And finally, they lose themselves

                                                                        Louise Penny, A Beautiful Mystery

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we die a little bit at a time

the path we have trod is littered

with bits and pieces of our very self

we trod, and trod, and trod

moving toward that grand death

but dying each moment

fading

becoming less

a ghost

the walking dead are among us

there are times we wish it were simply over

that we could fade away

but there are other times

when we glimpse that fact

that each ending can become a beginning

perhaps the birth won’t be easy

it rarely is

but in each ending is the seed of

something new

it may be quite different from what

we asked for

or imagined

and we may fight both the death

and the birth

but death is only death

for those who hang on tightly to the old

and refuse to welcome what is next

even as we die and die and die again

we are merely waiting to be born