Jeweled Breadcrumb #33 : choosing life rather than a medical process
More than once I have said to friends, “The next time I move will be feet first on a gurney.” I am not joking. It is my hope to live fully each day until my last call realizing, I will die a thousand deaths before my final curtain. And so I pray for myself and my aging friends that with grace we are able to let go of all that is impermanent and curtsy to the climatic finale of being as is now.
my prayer list keeps growing
old friends are slowing
mortality tightens my toes
i ask myself, ‘Well then,
how shall i spend them?’
each day that precedes my repose
though dying is natural
aging is collateral
brief body will waste away
ripe teeth will be cranky
firm muscles unsteady
my long brown hair will turn grey
it is most important
i remain coherant
being here now to the end
no doctors fixing
rare treatment inflicting
suffering life to extend
i surely would prefer
my ending to defer
but odds are someday will be now
so let me be certain
that my final curtain
will tear with a glorious bow
until the illusion
of my exclusion
from all that is certain be gone
i pray to cherish
each day as i perish
preparing for my new dawn
Breadcrumb
No, I am not dying. Actually, that is not true, but doctors have not yet intervened to turn my aging and inevitable death into a medical process. For now I am just packing books, preparing to move closer to town. When my fingers wrap around Atul Gawande’s incredible tome, “Being Mortal,” I have to pause and ponder my own mortality.
More than once I have said to friends, “The next time I move will be feet first on a gurney.” I am not joking. It is my hope to live fully each day until my last call realizing, I will die a thousand deaths before my final curtain. And so I pray for myself and my aging friends that with grace we are able to let go of all that is impermanent and curtsy to the climatic finale of being as is now.
Thank you for reading these words,
written by grace and the grit of a real human being. Debra Asis
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The assignment that brings me to the writing of these words is to unapologetically tell the story of how God nudges, cajoles, drop kicks and masters me to be the real human being that I am … becoming … following God’s Jeweled Breadcrumbs. My daily writing challenge for 2025 is to share the Breadcrumbs with you.
You may also visit me at https://www.debraasis.org/
