no 27

Have you accidentally looked into the sun or bright light and then looked away, and the image burned into your eyelids? That’s an afterimage.

Last week, I wrote about a weekend trip and conversations with both myself and my osteopath about the healing work I want to start. It all came down to energy: how the power of people, the energy of places, or things/events are etched into the archive of my nervous system and memory– and how the archives impact how I experience the present.

This week, I’ve been sitting with mortality. Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that’s stayed with me in the past week. Let’s begin.

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A Message from the Past: She Will Bury Me

Tokyo, May 2008

I sat on the hospital bed, two days out of the ICU after an emergency C-section. My daughter was wheeled to me from the nursery, and the nurse set her on my bed. I marveled at the new life in front of me. Like seeing a shooting star for the first time or how the aurora borealis might feel if I'm lucky enough to see it one day, I sat in awe. And then it hit me: this baby will bury me one day. I will die before she does.

I hoped she'd outlive me, with might I never knew I had. At thirty-five, it was the first glimpse of my mortality.

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​What I Remembered: What None of Us Get to Choose

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Tokyo, Early Spring 2009

Not long after I had my daughter, I sat in the waiting room of the homeopath’s office, filling out an intake form on a clipboard. I was intrigued by homeopathy. I thought of it as the European cousin of TMC, Traditional Chinese Medicine. They both worked with the body’s natural ability to heal, which appealed to me.

The intake form was never-ending. I flipped to the end. There were 125 questions. The first group of questions asked about my physical health and symptoms, whether chronic or acute. There was a group of questions about my emotional and psychological health and a section on family history. Some questions asked what I aspired to. Others asked about my fears and phobias. These questions seemed more or less usual for intake, if not highly granular.

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My blood went cool. I’d never been asked about my medical history pre-birth. Remembering the excited congratulations from family, friends, and colleagues when I announced my pregnancy, my eyes and chest started growing warm. I recognized the advantage a baby has when they are wanted and the mother is relatively free of stress. Just then, my heart sank. Not everyone’s arrival into the world, through no fault of their own, is met with celebration.

I thought of a daughter of an acquaintance; she had been conceived unexpectedly from an extramarital affair, and not everyone had been happy about the pregnancy, or her arrival into the world.

It wouldn't be until years later I'd question my answer to that question: Had I, indeed, been wanted? Was I a surprise baby? Had I been wanted so soon after my parents' honeymoon, a mere nine months?

In the end, I decided it didn't matter. We don’t get to choose how we come into the world. None of us do.

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What We Do Get to Choose

While we have no control over coming into the world (in most religions and thought systems, at least), the choice we have is in how we meet life and what we leave behind.
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How do we live?

How do we love?

How do we connect?

How do we serve others? How do we care for and help each other?

What do we leave behind?

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What I Remember Hearing: Humble Custodians

My mom once told me over a long conversation after an extended visit following my grandfather's death: “Whether it’s land or homes, artifacts, we can’t take any of it with us to the 'other side.' We’re just custodians while we're on this Earth. To think that we own and possess is arrogance. Hubris.”

I’ve been thinking about this again recently, and it’s made me reflect, reconsider, and change how I spend time with my daughter, where I pour my energy, and how I spend it.

Maybe it’s not so different from how I like to spend my day on the beach or a mountain trail: be present, witness what's in front of me, appreciate my time while there, and leave everything in better shape than I found. The other stuff, for the most part, doesn’t matter.

Only love remains.
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A Question for You: One of my best friends once asked me,

"If you knew you had only five more days to live, how would you spend those five days?"

What would you do? How would you spend those days?

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This issue of Afterimage is dedicated to the loving memory of those we love who’ve Departed. Thank you for giving us the gift of knowing what it means to love and be loved.