One of the guys at the cafe was operated on for cancer of the wind pipe about a year ago, and was feeling pretty good after the operation until they found some of it in his brain, then some more, then in the kidneys.....He decided to just make it another day, and made his rounds of visitation and conversation until he got too weak to carry on. This poem, from the Sufi mystic and ultimate definer of love, life, and light Rumi, mirrors my thoughts.
The day I've died, my pall is moving on -
But do not think my heart is still on earth!
Don't weep and pity me: "Oh woe, how awful!"
You fall in devil's snare - woe, that is awful!
Don't cry "Woe, parted!" at my burial -
For me this is the time of joyful meeting!
Don't say "Farewell!" when I'm put in the grave -
A curtain is it for eternal bliss.
You saw "descending" - now look at the rising!
Is setting dangerous for sun and moon?
To you it looks like setting, but it's rising;
The coffin seems a jail, yet it means freedom.
Which seed fell in the earth that did not grow there?
Why do you doubt the fate of human seed?
What bucket came not filled from out the cistern?
Why should the Yusaf "Soul" then fear this well?
Close here your mouth and open it on that side.
So that your hymns may sound in Where- no-place!
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