This post is by our guest blogger and A Little Peace of Mind graduate, Amie Joof.
Here Amie shares her story of change……
I spent a week contemplating how I’d feel at a funeral that was coming up (like I’d ever be able to look into the future and know), after an elderly person I worked with for years passed away.
I wondered for a week if I’d be able to go. I wondered for a week how I’d cope seeing 30 of my colleagues at once. I spent the majority of the week future planning, future “what if-ing” because in my mind, I had decided that day to day life was pretty straight forward for me now, I don’t get much anxiety and when I do, it really isn’t front page news anymore.
However, my mind had also decided that funerals are a very serious, big deal, they’re negative and scary and something that should be avoided at all costs. Our whole lives we’re taught that death is either something you don’t speak about, or if you have to, it’s always a hard, bad subject. It’s almost like, we’ve been taught death is unnatural. Something to fear.
I made it to the funeral. It’s funny, because I had less anxiety, in fact I don’t think I had any at all, yet I’d spent a week feeling quite anxious beforehand and I wasn’t even there yet (inside out theory in living proof as always). When it came to the burial, a cousin of the man who had passed away said a few words.
She thanked everyone for coming and she explained that he was being buried with his mum, he was constantly asking for his mum, especially towards the end of his life. He wanted her, he wanted to be with her.
She had said he always came to visit the same place he was being buried in now and he would sit under the big tree and talk to his mother. This is what made me emotional, not the service, not the fact that he was “gone”, but the beautiful nature and the beautiful cycle of life itself. How I look at “death” so differently now.
I spent a week worrying, only to have what seemed the most peaceful, beautiful day. I looked around at everyone upset that he had gone. But when I looked down, I saw a person free from earthly pain, finally reunited with the one person he cared most about. His mother. I saw life doing what it does best. I felt pure peace. So I smiled to myself and thought “go and be at peace with her now.” ❤️
