Off my mother’s bookshelf, great perspective on how unimportant you really are over time.
The Deliverance
by Anthony De Mello – Wellspring 1986
To see life as it truly is, nothing helps so much as the reality of death.
I imagine I am present at my funeral.
I see my body in the coffin,
I smell the flowers and incense,
I witness every detail of the funeral rites.
My eyes rest briefly on each person present at the funeral.
Now I understand
how short a time they have to live themselves,
only they are not aware of it.
Right now their mind is focused,
not on their own death or the shortness of their life,
but on me.
This is my show today – my last great show on earth,
the last time I shall be the center of attention.
I listen to what the priest is saying about me in his homily.
And as I scan the faces of the congregation
It gives me pleasure to observe that I am missed.
I leave a vacuum in the hearts and lives of friends.
It is also sobering to think
that there may be people in that crowd who are pleased that I am gone.
I walk in the procession to the graveyard. I see the group and stand silent at the grave
while the final prayers are said.
I see the coffin sink into the grave – the final chapter of my life.
I think what a good life it was,
with all its ups and downs,
its periods of excitement and monotony, it’s achievements and frustrations.
I stay on beside the grave
recalling chapters of my life
as the people in the crowd go back
to their homes, their daily chores,
their dreams and worries.
A year goes by and I return to earth.
The painful vacuums I left behind
are steadily being filled:
the memory of me survives in the hearts of friends,
but they think about me less.
They now look forward to other people’s letters,
they relax in other people’s company;
other people have become important in their lives.
And so it must be: life must go on.
I visit the scene of my work.
If it still continues, someone else is doing it,
someone else is making the decisions.
The places I used to frequent only a year ago:
the shops, the streets, the restaurants… they are all there.
And it doesn’t seem to matter that I walked those streets and visited those shops and road those buses.
I am not missed. Not there!
I search for personal effects like my watch, my pen, and those possessions that had sentimental value for me: souvenirs, letters, photographs.
And the furniture I used, my clothes, my books.
I return on the fifthieth anniversary of my death
and look around to see
if someone still remembers me or speaks of me.
A hundred years go by and I come back again.
Except for a faded photograph or two in an album or on a wall
and the inscription on my grave, little is left of me.
Not even the memory of friends, because none of them exists.
Still, I search for any traces
that are possibly left on earth of my existence.
I look into my grave to find a handful of dust
and crumbling bones in my coffin.
I rest my eyes on that dust
and think back on my life –
the triumphs, the tragedies,
the anxieties and the joys,
the strivings, the conflicts,
the ambitions, the dreams,
the loves and the repugnances
that constituted my existence
-all of its scattered to the winds,
absorbed into the universe.
Only a little dust remains to indicate that it ever was,
that life of mine!
As I contemplate that dust
it is as if a mighty weight is lifted from my shoulders
-the weight that comes from thinking I matter.
Then I look up and contemplate the world around me
-the trees, the birds, the earth,
the stars, the sunshine,
a baby’s cry, a rushing train, the hurrying crowds,
the dance of life and of the universe-
and I know that somewhere in all of these are the remains of that person I called me and that life that I called mine.