Taking My Last Breath At A Death Workshop Gifted Me Precious Life

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I took my last breath four weeks ago.

More specifically, I saw myself take my last breath as I sat at my desk listening to a woman named Aba tell the story of this final breath, in 2nd person narration, with great detail, minute by minute, until, with the safest wording in the softest voice, she showed my keenly engaged imagination how okay everything was, that it was time, and I let go.

Seventy-five of us let go together on a shared Zoom call in a death awareness workshop that, so far as I can tell, has changed my life.

I waited to write this because I was skeptical that such a dramatic shift in my awareness could actually last. It’s not only lasted, but has grown. Let me explain.

I’m enrolled in a new coaching class as part of my ever-continuing education to maintain certification as a neurodiversity coach. Our first meeting was to discuss the topic: what do we do when death enters the coaching space?

This was a reasonable topic, especially since none of my previous classes had addressed such a scenario. But, since my clients tend to be younger, I was ambivalent about how pertinent this would be to my coaching. Still, I was game.

The class reading material was sent out, including a TED talk by well-known death doula, Alua Arthur. The talk really hit me, so I went to her website, where there’s a list of educational offerings for those interested in becoming a professional death doula, or for your run-of-the-mill human interested in wrapping their minds around their one-day, guaranteed death.

I’m nearing 61 and have been thinking about mentally and emotionally preparing for that day. I’m a planner. I’m also a scaredy cat, and don’t want to be caught in the swirl of what I expect could be an unpleasant reaction to this inevitability if not given enough time to process it.

So, I signed up for Alua’s 3.5-hour online Death Awakening Workshop, just days away. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. How would I handle it? Would it send me into a tailspin of fear or depression? Had I just made a really dumb decision?

My answer to those kinds of questions usually is: Cross that bridge when you come to it.

Luckily, I had one extremely effective solution in the event the workshop was too intense — press the button on the bottom right of my computer screen: leave meeting. No biggie, Steph.

Yet, what transpired during those 3.5 hours appears to be the fastest mind pivot I’ve ever had. It was, and is, stunning.

What Alua and her sister, Aba, did was walk us meticulously through the story of our death process over a few hours. It was so believable and delivered with such calm and safety that I walked away feeling like I’d just experienced my death.

Still today, I feel like I’ve died, if I can state it that way. The time in front of me is so precious now. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to live out something I’d been scrambling to hide from insatiable Time. I have no words to describe this. It’s like I’m in a different body with a new mind.

The workshop was a journey through roughly seven months of a terminal illness, through the treatment cycle, the process of dealing with others, our perceptions and hopes, and through the gradual letting go of the things we hold most dear — values, experiences, core beliefs, and finally, loved ones.

The workshop began with us writing each of these dear things on fifteen separate notecards. As the visualization of death progressed, we were gradually directed to place each next notecard into a pile. We said goodbye to it. We let it go.

It wasn’t depressing, though there was some melancholy. Most of the 75 participants seemed to walk away better for the experience. Some remarked on how safe death seems now, how natural. Others said they wanted to fret less and enjoy more. There were comments about wanting to prepare for death — finances, wills, possessions, interactions with others, shoring up fraught relationships.

That evening, after the workshop ended, I went to the kitchen to do the dishes. I wanted something ordinary to put my hands into. I wanted to have a party, too, because now the rest of my life was no longer something to stockpile but to experience. I turned on music and started dancing while scrubbing and rinsing. I realized immediately this was a callback to my teenage years when my sister and I would turn on the radio, and dance and sing while we did the supper dishes. We turned a chore into a jam session — brilliant.

It occurred to me that night, I’d not partied in front of the sink in over forty years.

After the dishes were clean, I walked to the open area in the kitchen and kept dancing to the music while watching my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling kitchen window. This is when I saw how miserable a dancer I am, even though all this time I assumed the opposite. This is also when I saw how much of a shift I’d made in the workshop. I embraced this bad dancing because in that window reflection was the true me, and that’s the only thing I owned in the whole world.

I kept dancing until the tears started, then I kept at it until the deep, carving sobs shut down the dance party. I dropped to the floor and cried harder than I might ever have, but the tears were different than any I’d known.

It centered around one thing:

I couldn’t stop apologizing to the life in my body for two recurring reasons from my past. One, I was often not happy with myself in some way. Two, there were times when I didn’t want to go on. In those tears, it was like these things floated away.

What I carry with me now is a blended view of my present life with its future end. The question always is: how do you want to have lived your life? For me, it doesn’t seem to be centered on cool bucket-list experiences. It’s more centered on mundane acts of kindness towards others. I don’t see this as any less or more valuable than a bucket list. It’s just what makes me feel the deepest connection to my life.

I imagine this is how people who’ve truly come close to their death must feel. Life’s preciousness becomes obvious in an unattached sort of way. I’ve been searching for a word to describe what I feel, to no avail. Is this because there isn’t much use for such a word? Are we mostly putting this awareness off?

The other day, in a Costco parking lot, I was unloading things from my cart into my car. Across the way, there appeared to be a father and his teen son interacting while unloading things into their car. You could tell from the son’s demeanor that the father gave him autonomy to live his life and make his choices, rather than the two occupying roles of authoritative boss and minion. You could tell they were close.

I waited for the right moment to do what I often feel compelled to do: acknowledge another’s goodness. Soon, the son got into the car, while the dad went to return his cart. I scurried over to do my thing.

“Hi, I don’t mean to pry, but is that your son?”

Maybe not the best opening question, but after an odd look on the face, the man answered, “Yes. Why?”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you that it’s so obvious to me that you are a really wonderful dad, and I just wanted to tell you that.”

The man looked stunned and touched. He gave me a nod with his two hands in prayer mode, thankful. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome. We need to tell each other these things. Have a wonderful rest of your day,” I told him.

“You do the same.”

Then we went off to live the rest of our lives.

I settled into my car and just sat there. The tears trickled down. I wasn’t sad. I was grateful. I knew one day — sooner or later — I’ll look back, and feel this time went well. I’ll know I did the best with what was allotted.

Then I’ll relax and be okay with the moment of finality in front of me. At least, that’s what I hope for. We’ll see, won’t we?

I figure, even if those final moments aren’t as peaceful as they were in the death workshop, the way I’m approaching life right now will leave me thanking myself that day. I won't even need words for it. I'll know.

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Hope you're doing well, friends.