For many, death is an uncomfortable topic. While we many not share beliefs regarding what happens after the body dies, we can all agree on two things:

1. We will all experience death of the body.
2. We don't know when death will happen.

Because of these two facts, many of us spend a lot of energy trying to deny or avoid accepting them. Now we could spend a lot of time and energy contemplating the unknown, of what happens after the body dies. But in the end, all we are left with are ideas and beliefs. Instead, we could decide to make the most of the life we know we have.

Ridding ourselves of the fear of death becomes a crucial step in connecting to our natural joy. That is because the fear of death underlies many of the other fears we may have: the fear of aging, the fear of losing identity, the fear of losing power, the fear of losing possessions, etc.

Rather than fearing the death of the body, some future event, we can allow ourselves to be comfortable with that truth and let go of many other fears. We can refocus our attention on what is here, right now, right before us and celebrate in the beauty and wonderment of the leaves dancing in the wind, the birds singing in the trees, the friend that sits beside you.

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver
​
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 
 
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
 
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
 
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
 
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
 
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
 
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
 
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
 
When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
 
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
 
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
 
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world

The following is the true story of Mary Johnson and Oshea Isreal:

Oshea was 16 years old and wanted to get into a gang. The way that he proved himself to enter the gang was to shoot somebody—it was an initiation rite. He shot this kid, Laramiun, he didn’t know. Two days later, he was apprehended, brought to trial, and at the end of the trial, convicted.

​Just before he is taken away in handcuffs, the mother of the boy who was shot, Mary Johnson, stands up, looks him in the eye, and says, “I’m going to kill you,” and then sits down.

After being in prison for a year or so, the Oshea is visited by Mary, and he’s kind of frightened. She says, “I’ve just got to talk with you.” They have a little bit of conversation, and as she leaves him she says, “Do you need anything? Cigarettes?” and leaves him a little money.

She starts to visit him. She goes every few months, and over the course of three or four years, she starts visiting him more regularly, talking to him.

When he was about to get out at the age of 17, she asks, “What are you going to do?” and he says, “I have no idea. I got no family, no nothing.” And she says, “Well I’ve got a friend who has a little factory—maybe I can help you get a job.”

So she arranges that with the parole officer. Then she asks, “Where are you going to stay?” and he says, “I don’t know where I’m going to go.” And she says, “Well I have a spare room where you can stay with me.” So he comes and stays in the spare room, takes this job, and after about six months, she says, “I really need to talk with you—come into the living room. Sit down, let’s talk.”

She looks at him and says, “Remember that day in court when you were convicted of murdering my son for no reason at all, to get into your gang, and I stood up and said, ‘I’m going to kill you?’”

“Yes ma’am, I’ll never forget that day,” he says.

And she looks back and says, “Well, I have. You see, I didn’t want a boy who could kill in cold blood like that to continue to exist in this world. So I set about visiting you, bringing you presents, bringing you things, and taking care of you. And now I let you come into my house and got you a job and a place to live because I don’t have anybody anymore. My son is gone and he was the only person that I was living with. I set about changing you, and you’re not that same person anymore.

But I don’t have anybody, and I want to know if you’d stay here. I’m in need of a son, and I want to know if I can adopt you.”

And he said yes and she did. 

Today, Oshea and Mary are next door neighbors. They speak all over the country about the power of forgiveness.