I recently sat and talked with a friend who nearly died 6 months ago. He was on a business trip in NYC, and in a cab with some work colleagues when something toxic to his body all of a sudden caused his body to start shutting down. I sat mesmerized as he described the experience to me: His awareness that he was going to die (or so it seemed at the time); his colleagues and the cab driver panicking and trying to figure out what to do; the thoughts that flashed through his head about his wife and children and life. He said he realized that his wife and children would be okay. He said he had no regrets. He said that they wanted to take him to the ER, and because he couldn’t imagine dying in a hospital, being prodded with tubes and filled with medications, he told them to take him to a park instead. He wanted to be out in nature, in a place that felt peaceful.
And then he said something that surprised me: “We all die alone. All of us.”
He told me that when his colleagues tried to engage him and connect with him, he held up his hand to stop them. He wanted, he said, to be able to be with his own thoughts, to be with himself.
As I paused later to consider what my friend had said, it really rang true to me. We are all alone.
My spiritual teacher Adyashanti said during a recent talk that he gave that everyone leaves us. Everyone. They leave. Or they die. Or we die. As much as we want to think that we can hold onto everyone that we love, everyone leaves. At one point or another, somehow or another. And the person we are always left with is ourself.
My dad was nearly 95 when he died. He was in a nursing facility, because after he broke his hip he needed more care than he could get at home. He died on a Sunday. My mom went to church that morning. She pulled into a parking space, and turned off the ignition. She reached to open the car door, and was overcome by the realization that she needed to skip church and instead go to the nursing facility to see my dad. She drove straight there, walked in, and said hello to my dad who reached for her hand. Less than half an hour later, he died. And my mom (his wife of 45 years) was there holding his hand when he took his final breath. I’ve always thought it was so beautiful and fitting that the love of his life, his soulmate, the woman he adored so much that his eyes often filled with tears when he told her or anyone who would listen how much he loved her, the woman who loved and accepted him exactly and entirely as he was, was there with him when he died. It seemed a fitting close to the chapter of their love for one another that involved them both being alive. I took solace in the fact that my mom was there for and with my dad. I love that they were so connected that she was acutely aware that she needed to be with him instead of at church that morning.
And then there are the many, many times — more than I can recall or count — when I have picked up the phone to dial a friend and had them ring my phone before I tapped the call button, or had an interaction with a complete stranger in which either they or I said or did exactly what the other most needed in that very moment. In those moments, I know that we are all connected.
Alone or connected? It’s not really the dichotomy we think it is. Rather than either/or, it’s both/and. Yes, we are all alone. And, at the same time, we are all always connected. That has always been the case. And it will always be true.
We get ourselves into trouble when we argue with either reality.
When we resist the reality that we are all alone, we suffer.
Perhaps you’ll marry someone who isn’t really a good match for you because you think that their presence in your life will help you avoid feeling lonely. Or maybe you’ll stay in a marriage that isn’t healthy because you’re afraid of never finding someone else and falling in love again. You might interact with your children in a way that fosters dependence rather than supporting their independence because you are subconsciously afraid that someday they will leave you. Or you will get angry with or judge or blame or criticize anyone and everyone who leaves you. Maybe you’ll do or say whatever you can to make them feel guilty about their choice. You may feel abandoned or wronged when someone you love or rely on sets a boundary or says “no” or leaves. Perhaps you’ll feel let down when they choose something to support their own aliveness instead of doing what you want them to do. Maybe you’ll reel inside or argue with them or question yourself when their point of view, their reality, or their needs or desires don’t match yours.
When we resist the reality that we are all connected, we suffer.
You may turn away from someone else’s pain or suffering, thinking that if you avoid it you won’t feel it. But when we turn away from another, we turn away from a part of our own experience, a part of our own self. You may believe that how you treat someone you think you’ll never see again won’t impact you, but you will come to realize that what you put out in the world is what you eventually receive. You may choose to blame or criticize someone you are having a conflict with and try to make it all about them without understanding that you are merely projecting onto them a part of yourself that you are disowning. And you’ll certainly miss the opportunity to learn from the mirror that everyone in your life provides you, of the parts of yourself you are denying, of the things within yourself that you are unwilling or unable to face. Thich Nhat Hanh expressed this beautifully in his poem, Call Me By My True Names
Call Me By My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
A dear friend said to me earlier today:
Unfortunately we are all alone; Fortunately we are all together.
To her I respond:
Fortunately we are all alone AND fortunately we are all together.
Both truths bring their gifts. It’s up to us to see and feel and experience and embrace them.
