Today I would like to share some thoughts I had back on the evening of Paul's death when I was allowed to return to the room where the nurses had washed Paul, had put a white sheet over him, had put a small bunch of flowers between his hands that were now folded over his chest and had lit a vanilla scented candle on the table beside his bed.
The room felt so peaceful.
This was the room in which, less than one hour before, Paul had taken his last breath.
I wanted to sit down beside him and just stay there with him forever. Would he still hear me if I spoke to him? I knew his brain was no longer working, but was his soul still in the room and would it hear me? And did it perhaps have a message for me, maybe something about how to move forward, something that would give me strength?
I wasn't able to stay in the room of course. Instead, I found myself standing on the hospital corridor outside the room where a nurse explained to me what would happen next in "the process". I couldn't help but feel that it was all too rushed, it was almost as if everything had been waiting for Paul to die, it was as if he became part of a system now part of which was that Paul would be brought away and that I would have to call the undertaker firm in the morning who would collect Paul from the hospital.
When I closed the door to Paul's room for the last time, it felt like I was leaving him alone. It felt wrong. I should not be leaving without him. I should stay here with him as I had all along. I found it somehow a brutal thought that, only one hour ago, Paul had been still alive and dressed, whereas now he was lying in the same bed under the white sheet and I carried his clothes home with us in a plastic bag. Had we given him enough time to go peacefully, for his soul or spirit to leave his body, was his body even cold yet?
And it was then that I realised for the first time that how we handle our dead ones in our culture is not how I would love to handle our dead. Would it not be nice to go back to traditional ways of handling our dead where we would be able to keep the loved one with us for a number of hours at least or even for a day or two, where we would have time to really say goodbye and where we would give them or their soul or their spirit or whatever we may want to call it enough time to really and truly leave the body?
Death in itself is nothing bad. Death is an absolutely normal part of this human existence. Of course, it is very sad for us when a loved one dies. We have lost them. But death in itself is a normal thing. I would love for our culture to be able to return to seeing it this way. Then we would have more time to say goodbye. And, in case there is something still alive in them, in case it takes longer for life to leave the body, in case there is still something that is aware, it would be important to give it space to unfold in a natural way and in a loving and supportive environment.
