Back on day Twenty-Seven I told you about a course I was taking through Going With Grace called The Living Practice. Each day you’re given something to think about, write about, and enrich your living experience by thinking about your death.

Yes, I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it really isn’t. Every day you do things, whether you realize it or not, you’re building your legacy. Your life is your message to others about what kind of a person you are externally, and to some extent even to yourself. But the juicy part, as Alua Arthur, founder of Going With Grace, likes to say, is that who you think you are may not actually be who you are.

We all have to go through the every day life stuff. We have to survive. We have to pay bills. We make time for social interaction or hobbies or adventure. But, who are we really? Without anything external, who are you?

I’m still pondering that one, but the question I’ve come to the answer for is:

Who or what was your most impactful death?

Of all the people I have loved and lost in this lifetime (part of the reason I became a Death Doula), the most impactful death would have to be my best friend L³ aka Bean. I lived with her and she with me for the majority of our adult lives. She was so freaking quirky, weird, and resentful of being pulled out of her comfort zone. A little secret I never told her, she MADE me braver than I felt.

I was friends with her for 37 years. She and I fought, laughed, created, sang, played, roadtripped, went to concerts, went on vacations together. She was my secret keeper. She was the fastest typer I’ve ever seen. I think they clocked her at like 125 wpm without errors. She was happier in a world of fantasy than in real life where disappointments followed her around like a rabid dog.

When she died, I got fucked up in the head. The person who was always there was gone. Who did that make me then? It took me about five years before I could think of her without crying or feeling devastatingly sad. Which, when you love someone like I loved her and know that you’re loved back, that loss is going to do exactly that.

Okay, so why was it the most impactful? I was 49, she was a month past 50 when she died. I suppose it’s a trick of my own disbelief or even a naivete’ but who the freak dies at 50? I was looking down that barrel myself and it freaked me out.

It made me really look at my life. I was unhappy. I was deeply depressed. I was so ridden with anxiety I couldn’t handle even missing a bus. Did I want to live the rest of my life like that? What could I change to make my life a better place to live?

She was the most impactful because I decided I wanted to live after she died. I mean live like we had intended to do together. She made me braver than I ever thought possible. She gave me the gift of life by leaving hers.

And now, here I am in freaking France getting ready to head to Portugal. The things I’ve seen would have made her laugh. The food would have blown her mind. The atmosphere would be right up her alley. She, although not physically, is still with me. She’s still here next to me,

(Well technically around my neck since I wear some of her ashes always) cheering me on to the best life I can live, for the both of us.

May peace be with you wherever you are or go. You are loved!