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| Joachim De Posada |
By Joachim De Posada
Website • Follow Me on Twitter • Follow on Facebook
Death, my
mother and what I learned
“Life does
not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious
when people laugh” George Bernard Shaw
This has
been a very difficult time for me and my family. My dear mother passed away
last week after suffering a stroke. She fought a brave fight, never once
complaining about her condition. She was hooked to oxygen, IV’s, all kinds of
machines and she didn’t complain once. Her nurses where so impressed with her
that one of them came in on Saturday to take care of her on her day off.
Yes, my
mother was a very brave woman. After the stroke, half her body paralyzed, her
mouth tilted to the right, she regained the ability to barely speak. She opened
her eyes, looked at me and said three things:
- Put your jacket on or you are going to
catch a cold.
- I am always scolding you.
- I love you very much.
Yes, even
at my age, she still saw me as a child. Mothers will always see their sons and
daughters as children even though they are adults.
I mean,
good mothers. Bad mothers abandon their children and sometimes even kill them,
like Andrea Pia Yates did with her five children, drowning them in the bathtub.
For a woman
to do that there has to be a real bad case of psychological trauma.
I am a
professional speaker but the one speech I wasn’t prepared to give was the one
at church on my mother’s funeral right before going to the cemetery.
I decided
that the best way to address the hundred and fifty or so people in the audience
was to highlight her good qualities and anecdotes about her life.
She was a
very positive person all throughout her life. She would always look at the
positive side of things, not matter how bleak the situation. I have had moments
in my life, like everyone else, where I simply felt pessimistic and yes, my
mother would always have a good word, a good gesture, a hug, smile or words
that would cheer me on and rescue me from those feelings.
Jim
Morrison once wrote about how people feel when they are in pain. He said he
believed that people are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their
feelings most of all. Love is great, but even love will bring lots of pain
sometimes. We have to face it, love hurts. I felt so much love for my mother
that now that she is gone, it hurts. Sometimes, I think about my daughter or
grandchildren and I love them so much that it hurts. As Jim said, “feelings
sometimes are to say the least, disturbing”. So true!
Come to
think of it, school teaches that pain is evil and dangerous. If that is the
case, how can you deal with love if you are afraid to feel? If we look at pain
from a different angle, we can see it as a wakeup call, it is mean to wake us
up. You shouldn’t hide your pain ever, well, at least most of the time. Pain is
like an I pad, you carry it around because you have to, because you need it,
because of the strength it gives you.
Yes, you
feel your strength in the experience of pain. It is all in how you carry it,
how you face it. That is what is important, what matters. Pain is a feeling and
your feelings are part of you, your own reality. If you feel ashamed of your
own reality or try to hide it, you are letting your own mind destroy your
being. You shouldn’t allow that to happen. You should stand up for your right
to feel your pain and you should have it very clear in your mind that all pain,
and I mean all pain, is temporary.
The natural
state of mankind is happiness, fulfillment, and love. Pain is what reminds you
of how fortunate you are.
I was
thinking about what you learn at school and I realized that there are many
important things that they don’t teach you at school. I saw a very interesting
list written by a fellow named Neil Geiman.
He made me think a lot about my school days,
in my case, the Sacred Heart Academy in Ponce de Leon Avenue in Santurce.
It was a
school run by nuns and I can’t complain since they taught me enough to go on to
the University of Puerto Rico and then continue on to graduate school.
But, there
were some things the nuns didn’t teach me and they are mentioned by Neil.
They didn’t
teach me how to love somebody although they did give me an example of love.
They didn’t
teach me how to be famous, not allowing it to get to your head.
They didn’t
teach me how to be rich or to be poor. Schools should invent an exercise where
you are poor and feel like poor and where you are rich and feel like rich.
I have a
friend, Phillip Zimbardo who conducted an experiment in college to teach kids
that everyone, when presented with the right circumstances could be very cruel,
no matter how decent you are. He wrote “The Lucifer Effect” a book I highly
recommend. Students learned a lot from his experiment, even a movie was created
about it, but he had to stop it because the students who were playing the part
of jailers, forgot that it was an experiment and even tortured students who
were playing the part of inmates.
They don’t
teach you how to get out of a relationship when you are no longer in love or
how to behave when he or she dumps you because you are no longer loved.
They don’t
teach you how to know what is going on in someone else’s mind or how to
understand their actions that sometimes seem irrational. Yes, not much empathy
is taught in schools, don’t you think?
They don’t
teach you what to say to someone who is dying like a patient I had when I
practiced clinical psychology who called me because she was dying and she
didn’t believe in God. That was a tough one alright.
They don’t
teach you how to handle the loss of your mother or father. I wonder if that can
be taught, maybe not.
And yet, we
all have to learn everything the hard way, by experience, by going through the
process, through the situation with the hope that you come out of it with more
knowledge, sensitivity and a better sense of what it means to be human. That is
life.
I end with
a poem about death, I don’t know who wrote it but it is very beautiful and it
surely applies to my mother:
“I know
that death will win this battle and take me away,
Please, I
don’t want anyone to weep, because my memories shall stay.
Let it not
be said that I gave up without a fight,
Let it not
be to all my family and friends, a good bye.
Sorrow and
happiness have followed me throughout my life,
But to
humankind only smiles have I tried to show,
Let not my
death make you sad in an already unhappy world,
Because I
lived life through my family’s glorious love,
If in many
ways I have touched hearts,
Then I hope
that a better world I will leave behind.
For all my
friends I have had the honor to have met,
Then my
life has not been lived in vain,
So, because
of me please do not cry or weep,
Because I
have been ready for my death since the day I was born”
May my
mother rest in peace.
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