WEEKEND ENGAGEMENT #166: Death as a master in my life.

Greetings, friends of Hive! Welcome to this space that is as much mine as it is yours. Once again I waited for the topics of the weekend and there was one that made me connect more, so much so that I could not help but smile because I always love to explore this topic; it has accompanied me as much as it accompanies all of us, that I always try to give me a space to reflect on it, and this time I could not overlook it. That is: death. This is how I was inclined to answer the question: "If you die today would you die knowing you lived your best life or not?".

I believe that all of us, at some point in our lives, begin to have doubts about death, and this leads us to such heavy crises that sometimes we would like to avoid them: Is there life after death? And if there is not, is it worth living life knowing that at some point it will all come to an end? Will there be more lives after this one? Religion has been in charge of answering these questions in its own way, and science in another way, but if you ask me, I believe that there is no absolute truth and death will always be one of the phenomena that leaves us more questions than answers.

When I first became aware of death, it was very scary at first. Fear for knowing that I would no longer see the ones I love, fear for the way I might die, and fear for the idea that death would not be eternal rest and that I would have to continue in the world as a non-human entity (because yes, the idea of the paranormal terrifies me). Precisely because of the religion that was instilled in me, my fears only increased and I felt that I had to lead a very correct life (according to the expectations placed on me by the people who know me and have raised me) to ensure that after my death I would not have some sort of punishment.

To much irony, I have always found it funny that I live near a cemetery (and when I say "near" it is practically a block away), and while I was in college, I lived very close to a funeral home (and when I say "near", it was NEXT TO IT), so when my roommates and I would hear knocking noises on the wall after midnight, we would decide it was a good time to go to sleep. It was while in college, however, that my relationship with death began to change, and I was able to see it with eyes of compassion and naturalness. Death had always been described to me as gloomy, tragic and frightening, sometimes also as a punishment or misfortune so great that I always had to live in fear of it, until I progressively understood it as if it were a mantra waiting to be heard: death is not exclusive of life; death gives rise to new forms of life. Death, like energy, does not make things disappear, but transforms them instead.

One day for a humanistic psychotherapy assignment, the professor asked us to dress up as gods to represent us for the psychodrama class. My dad is from Maracaibo, Venezuela, and his family comes from a Guajira family, so even though I am not very close to that side of the family, he has always been in charge of making me remember those roots, so as a way of honor I decided to represent myself through a goddess of the Wayuu mythology, and that is how I met Pulowi. This is a female deity that represents the winds, drought, the underworld and to my surprise, death. So it was an honor to represent her, and to know that even though death gives rise to so many questions, we always seek to make sense of it through rituals, symbolism, art, and in my own way, I use these alternatives to honor her. I do not mean by this that when death is near, and manifests itself in the death of a loved one or a traumatic event, I become indifferent, but I have certainly lost my fear and now I accept it as a companion that, rather than reminding me that someday the end of my days will come, it reminds me that now more than ever is the time to live.

That is why my answer to the question is that I consider that there are many things I want to do with my life, and so far I have had a life full of pleasant experiences and others not so much, I have gained wonderful people and moments, and just as I have gained them I have also lost them, but with each duel I go through a new form of life appears, and certainly that would not be possible if something like death did not exist and everything was eternal, therefore everything would lose the power to transform. In short, if I die today I have not lived my best life, but I have certainly learned a lot from my deaths. I have learned from unfinished closures, from dark and discouraging moments, and every day I strengthen more sense of life thanks to that somewhat dark and cruel, but at the same time compassionate and patient companion. Thank you for reading my post, I hope to meet you in the next one!