Given

There’s a very strange moment at the very point of death which isn’t actually sad. It isn’t shocking or disheartening and it isn’t even horrific. It’s quite simply startling. Like the moment after a surprise, there is a startling and quite sober realisation actually, that this great tragedy or turn of event that has just occurred, is about to change everything forever and nothing would ever be the same as before. In that instant, before emotion and reality have a chance to set in, it’s like one catches a glimpse of the past, present, and future, and quickly and callously calculates the magnitude of what has just transpired. Possibly it’s a coping instinct to reassure oneself of their own survival in spite of the world having just fallen apart around one. It is a cold and carnal embrace of the circumstance void of much expression or reaction that would somehow seem to prepare one for the moments ahead. It is that very first moment of acceptance of death, realising of life unreturning, undefied. I think there is an innate and natural sense of spiritual understanding, and even blessing bestowed upon those present when a soul departs from a saintly body, to in a sense, both mock and defy the faithlessness of our mortality, and dance into the freedom of what lies beyond this life. Yes, that is exactly it. In my own particular experiences in any event, there is a fraction of time stood still where even in the very midst of death itself and one’s own selfish loss, there’s a split second sense of relief in the eternal salvation and final freedom gained by the one you love, who from then on and evermore, will always and only find great peace and perfect love at the dwelling place of God.