Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It is not length of life, but depth of life. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Are we okay with facing death, and through that acceptance enriching our lives? In the past, some people kept a skull on their desks to remind them that they too, will die. Is this the most horrible thought or one, if we kept at the forefront of our life would help us live it differently?

We are told in the bible 1 Corinthians, “Death, where art thou sting? Aleteia, a Nun in her blog says she got a little ceramic skull she keeps on her desk as a memento mori, the Latin phrase for “Remember you will die.” She says it is changing her life. For her, the skull reminds her that her life will end, and her goal is heaven.

We may not like to think about it, but it is the end for all of us. I met someone a few years ago whose grandmother had cancer and wasn’t expected to have long to live. Every night she cleaned her house so if she died in the night her house would be clean. She lived for six years, and said, “It takes a long time to die.” Did she live those six years more fully, or was she just waiting to die? I wasn’t wise enough to ask that important question.

We don’t know how long we have on earth. We know we have today, and we should make it count. Are we healing rifts in our families? Are we encouraging people in their lives?

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death. Leonardo do Vinci

There are hard truths in life and if we accept them and build our life with them it will make it a better life.

Life is hard, not always but sometimes. We need to be grateful for everything in our lives. Life is fleeting, beauty is fleeting, and relationships are fleeting.

Each one of us is not that important.

We are not in control. Suffering is the fear we are not in control. If we accept we are not in control it means we can learn how to trust the process of life.

We are going to die. If we don’t embrace death then we fear it and that fear stops us from living our life. We will die but we have today and however more tomorrows we have. If we embrace death maybe we will live a better life?

Where would we go?

Who would we forgive?

What would we create?

In the 15th and 16th centuries, ivory skulls were all the rage. Some believe this was not so much a response to the fragility of life, but rather the comforts that people were feeling, and a way of saying, “Don’t get too caught up in the ways in which your life is better than what your grandparents experienced.” They might have been getting distracted from faith and moral duties by luxury goods and treasures instead of remembering the fragility of life.

The more life changes the more it stays the same. Is that where we are now? Are we getting caught up in luxury goods? A skull is also a symbol we are all equal. The rich skull doesn’t look different from a poor skull, and we will all become skulls in the end.

Underneath everything, we are naked and afraid. We clothe our nakedness to give us confidence and we wear luxury goods to make ourselves feel important and to make other people feel we are important. Underneath we are all the same, and we are all ending up in the same place.

We will all be equally dead. We have choices to make while we are alive, what will they be?

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. Kahlil Gibran

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Marie Curie

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

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Jordan B. Peterson (Author, Narrator), Norman Doidge MD – foreword (Author), Random House Canada (Publisher)

Secrets and Silence: What if your biggest secret became public? by [Belynda Wilson Thomas]

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