From the Library of Deacon Mike:
"The hardest lesson to learn in life is unconditional love…everything is bearable when there is love…my (final) wish is that you try to give more people more love. It is the only thing that lives forever."
Conclusion of "The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
A book that I often return to for inspiration and eagerly recommend to your reading is the exquisitely beautiful written book by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. entitled "The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying." In 1969 psychiatrist Kubler-Ross wrote a book entitled "On Death and Dying" in which she systematically asked dying patients what it was like to be terminally ill, and to identify what came to be known worldwide as "near-death experiences." Until then, Kubler-Ross contends, the medical establishment had not only ignored the subject of death, but had actively avoided it due to its implication of medical failure. Now, after ten books that empathetically tracked our culture's ways of dealing with sickness, death and spirituality, Kubler-Ross offers her own story in what would be her final book. The firstborn of triplet girls, she describes a childhood surrounded by mountains, wildflowers and a loving family in Switzerland. She shares stories of her marriage and motherhood, her deep desire to help others and to restore humanity to medicine, her explorations of out-of-body experiences and encounters with spirit guides, and the extreme resistance to her never-realized plan of caring for AIDS babies on her Virginia farm.
Kubler-Ross seems to have lived several lifetimes in one, but a series of strokes had slowed her down to the point where a reporter asked her if she was ready to retire. She pointed to the stacks of letters in her office and said, "You get a letter from a parent whose child has been murdered. How can you say, 'I'm retiring now.'" Would she do anything differently if she had her life to live over? She abruptly rose and went inside her office. When she returned she handed the reporter a letter. It was from a 50-year-old woman dying of cancer. The letter read, in part: "If I had my life to live over again, I would take more time to smell the roses. I would be more of a risk-taker. I would pick more blueberries and wildflowers. And I would eat more chocolate. Lots more chocolate." Elisabeth Kubler-Ross grinned and said, "There's your answer."
She says the one question that everyone must answer at the end of life is: "What have you done to help?" In a culture that often prefers to sweep death under a carpet and hide it there, Kubler-Ross consistently defied common wisdom to bring it into the light and hold it there for us to see and not be afraid. Driven by compassion, undeterred by obstacles, she has shown me through this story of her remarkable life that free will is our greatest gift and that our goal is spiritual evolution.
May this book bring to you as much comfort and consolation and joy as it has brought to me.
God Bless
Mike
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