No One Can Take Their Life

My heart is full and my eyes well over remembering my beautiful friend John, his heart of gold and his angelic face, his ongoing quest for truth and his service to so many.

John, only 30 years old, was hit by a train in the wee hours on November 7. We could say it was a suicide and who really knows? It seems likely and the facts are: man in the dark, train, impact, death.

And if it was a suicide? Even in his apparent overwhelm and self-doubt, I always trusted him to know what was best for him, and I trust him still. I do this without condoning a violent end to any life; rather, I trust him, knowing that what he was experiencing in his mind had to be very, very violent for him to want to end it in this way...for him to be unable to turn to another way.

I feel what I would call a loss today, and yet what a gift to my world he continues to be.

One morning last week, I was feeling some regret that I hadn't stayed in closer touch with John more recently, as if that would have made a difference. So I did The Work on the thought, "John took his life," and I saw how I think life is ours to give and take, and that life means individual lives...as if the death of his body means he died. John is the Life, as are all of us; his was a dear, dear expression of the Life. I can't stop seeing him in my mind's eye and loving him. He didn't take that.

My turnarounds were "John did not take his life" and also "John took his life;" choosing perhaps the life that seemed preferable to him at the time of his death; death of the body-mind. Who says so-called life is better and higher than so-called death? Why do I see his death as a tragedy? Should he have stayed here for anyone else's sake?

"I took John's life," believing in his death as well as imagining him taking his life in different ways (I didn't yet know how he died at the time I did inquiry). I killed him dozens of times between yesterday and today.

"I took my life." If I think he's dead, a part of me dies.

One turnaround I didn't see, given to me by a friend: "John gave his life." Oh yes, the John I knew/know lived that way, bestowing his gifts so freely. I remember him when he came to Santa Cruz with our friend Rachel as part of their inquiry project; I joined them that day doing The Work with people about prejudice. Rachel and I paired up while John went off on his own, asking people if they wanted to explore; he even "accosted" one of our local characters, a silent clown known as the Pink Umbrella Man. Seemingly everyone was included in John's giving. As people share about him on the public forum dedicated to his life, he makes even more friends.

I want to share a beautiful Katie-quote about death from a long out-of-print book, A Cry in the Desert:

"We look at the survivors of the death of a beloved and we say,'Oh, it's bad.' Not true!...'I didn't do enough. I didn't tell him what I should have before he died. Who is going to take care of me? What am I going to do; he's not here?'....What they call death, I call a Celebration of Life....Death of a close one is a new opportunity to give me what they gave me and to appreciate creatively as I do it."
—Byron Katie

©2008 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Amends After Death

Adapted from Transformational Inquiry: Working on Mothers and Others

(Today I am reminded of my mother, Pearl Skolnick, who passed away ten years ago on April 14, 1998. This post is dedicated to her with love.)

How can you heal a relationship after someone has died? While attending The School for The Work for the second time, I found myself working on my mother issues for most of the week. I was more than a little frustrated; some people I knew were cleaning up their relationships with their mothers, sharing their turnarounds with them, asking their mothers to tell them their truth, and really listening to them without defense. I realized how one-sided my work was; since my mother had died several years before, there was no way for me to do the equivalent. Or was there?

If everyone is our projection, they continue to live where they always lived: between our ears, in our minds and memories. Therefore, it is perfectly appropriate and possible do do The Work on thoughts about someone who has passed away. It is even possible to make amends to that person after their death. Amends are, after all, for us; forgiveness most benefits the one doing the forgiving. It's never comfortable to resent another; in making amends we are letting ourselves off the hatred hook.

Here's an exercise based on one from The School for The Work: once you've done some work on someone who has died--in other words, once you can do this with sincerity--try writing a letter of amends to them, in which you own your part in any misunderstanding between you.

In this letter--which, naturally, you're not going to be able to send--you
can enumerate the things you are sorry for (if you are truly sorry), the things you admired about this person, what you learned from him or her, and what you are grateful to them for. Sign off with love, if that feels genuine.

Once you have written the letter, cross out the person's name and the word "you" and insert your name and "I." Notice how much of your letter remarkably still
applies in this turnaround exercise. Gently take in what you have written and heal your relationship with yourself.

Eight years after my mother's death, I wrote a letter of amends to her
while attending a weekend workshop with Byron Katie. I had done this exercise several times before, but this was the letter I felt most deeply, the one that changed my life, past and present, and gave me back my mother.

Dear Mommy,

Looking back on our relationship, I wish I had been more understanding of you; kinder and more patient. I know you were doing the best you could and I was selfish to expect you to be different.

I am so sorry I tried to force you into parting with your belongings when you were sick and defenseless...to have yelled at you and disrespected you in public. I am sorry for having been so ashamed of you, and I am most sorry for that hesitation I had when the doctor asked if I wanted to put you on life support. I blamed you for not telling me beforehand what you wanted. I realize now that you were not able to discuss these things with me.

Throughout my life, I blamed you for my unhappiness. If you were here today I would make it up to you in whatever way you wanted. Since you are not here now, how can I live my life in a way that honors you for who you truly were?

I see now that you were a courageous woman to raise a child when you were grappling with so many demons. You saw to it that I had what I needed. You let me know I was smart and capable and able to take care of myself...and you gave me that opportunity at an early age. It's a gift that I could not appreciate until now.

Thank you for giving me a life, a home and a strong foundation. You continue to support me even now.

I love you very much, Mommy. You acted as if you didn't like to hear that, and it must be said: I love you.

Your Sputnik


As you might imagine, turning this letter around as if written by me, to me, was most powerful.


©2008 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

On No Sorrow

I've been avoiding this post for days, not wishing to fetishize the death of my friend, nor to question it away...nor to draw attention to myself as a great tribute-writer or some sort of paragon of "how to accept death with equanimity." Today the words will have their way.

Here's my sweet Betty, who passed away, her partner wrote, "with grace and beauty," out of pain and happy, on Friday night, March 30. This was the second bout of cancer in her body that I am aware of; after successful treatments for lesions in the brain last month, more lesions were found in her spine and she opted not to continue treatments. Hospice was called in and in her last days, Betty was surrounded by loved ones and, I like to think, other angels such as she.

Betty and I were not close in the way I used to think closeness meant: we had no weekly or even monthly phone calls or emails, we never visited each other at our homes or took trips together. We lived on opposite sides of the country for most of our acquaintance and hers was not the name that first came to mind in my times of need; yet I would gladly have flown to her bedside if called upon (and I understand she wanted no visitors). Instead I sent Reiki, love notes and photos.

She told a friend she would love a call from me; I didn't call in time. I'm not sad about it; I realized any desire to speak to her was not for her but for me. Our last words were exchanged many months before her diagnosis and I am sure they were loving words, as ours always were to each other. Now I can talk to her whenever I want to...and I do.

Betty and I bonded not simply over The Work but over our mutual passion for writing. She was a talented essayist and wanted to write about The Work for publication, as I had done. She sent me her gems for editing and critique; she struck me as so generous and ego-less with the things she loved.

At a School for The Work, some of the staff staged a skit based on The Sound of Music, called "The Sound of Questions." (Guess who played the Mother Superior?!) As "Sister Willingnessa," Betty gave an adorable performance as an innocent nun who sees the light of her own truth while inquiring into the Ten Commandments with "Sister Katie."

"But I don't covet anyone's wife!"
"Go in, sister..."
"Oh...oh now I see...my mother was a wife and (crying) I wanted my mother to love meeeeeee!"

It was just a few seconds' worth of dialog but she was so sweet and engaging, I will never forget it.

A friend who was at her bedside wrote, "Betty is teaching me to live through her dying." What I can say is that Betty taught me how to live through her living. Knowing her, she didn't miss out on one precious second of her last days of life. As someone who is "alive," I cannot say the same for myself yet. When I got the news of Betty's diagnosis, I had her in the grave immediately; for a little while, believing my thoughts about illness and death, I was under the ground while she, so clearly, was living a full life. While she was still in treatment, she wrote me that a core of peace always remained untouched by drugs and hospital visits and the mental fogginess that occurs with brain cancer. And, she said, it took hard work to stay focused on recovery. I love that she knew when to stop, that she never gave herself anything less than the best that was available.

The day prior to Betty's passing, I felt weak and experienced lower body aches from an impending flu. I kept thinking how she'd be so graceful and present with that pain and it has helped me to be with the discomfort without war. (WWBD: "What Would Betty Do?") That night, as a friend and I were talking about her on the telephone, we simultaneously experienced Betty in us, as us. Here as my very self she remains, so abundantly present that I cannot grieve her death or miss her.

Rest well, sweet Sister Willingnessa. I love you so much.


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.