Shop
Close 
LANGUAGE

New Day Herald

A Necessary Love Affair

First published in the NDH Mar/Apr 1995.

I’d like to talk a little about a subject that is very tender and very close to people, and that is grief. To me, grieving is a necessary love affair. And illness is a weaning away of people when someone is going to die. Disease is the carrier that helps us wean ourselves away so that when the person dies, we say, “Okay, because I’d rather have you die than suffer the illness anymore.” Getting weaned away from those we can’t separate from immediately is a real mercy of God.

Sometimes we look at illness as a terrible thing, death as something we’re to avoid, and grieving as an unnecessary evil. But I call grieving a love affair. My God! I’ve grieved over people because I love them. I’ve got to get my loving out to them somehow, and grieving is the only way I can do it if they’re not here.

I’ve also grieved over people who are alive, and I let them know that. Maybe I’ve had a bad argument or misunderstanding with someone. I’ve grieved the misunderstanding, and I’ve cried with them. We do this because we love them. And we have to allow the person that expression of love, as well as a tender, touching love.

I don’t know if I could assist in a hospice because I’m a crier. I probably couldn’t say anything because I’d be crying all the time. Somebody’s got to grieve with the grievers because they’re hurting as badly as the person who’s dying. In fact, the person who’s dying probably isn’t hurting that much; they’re probably glad to get out of the darn thing. But the people who are left behind—I think there should be something for them.

We suffer the hurts of death because we don’t know. I teach that we don’t die, so we don’t suffer. But when someone we love dies, we suffer from losing the loving, from no longer having the loving returned to us. You see, when people go, we miss them and their love for us: “Who will I have to love me? Mom, now that you are dead, who will love me like you loved me? Dad, now that you’re dead, who will love me like you loved me? My spouse, who will love me like you loved me?” Even when we get divorced, it’s often, “Who will love me like you loved me?” And we grieve the loss. I think it’s a very necessary part of who we are, and I wouldn’t want anybody to take grief away.

If a loved one dies or you get divorced and if you don’t feel bad about not being together anymore, then what value was there in being together? I would expect to feel bad, or why did I spend the extra time with them, past the time when I felt anything for them? It would have been better to go earlier.

In hospice work, I think we’re preparing the relatives of the one who is dying more than we’re preparing the person who is dying, but we can still assist the one dying, of course. I know that I want to die with the things around me that I want, and why can’t we give these to people who are in a hospice? I do think pictures that bring the person more to the spirit of himself or herself would be very valuable to have in the room. That may be a picture of a little cat, a dog, a deer, a flower, a stream, a lake—anything, as long as that quality is in it. It’s the same with music. There is some music that can help a person come into their Spirit more easily, and that’s what we’d like for them, if they are open to it. We can help prepare the dying person for whatever is next. We can help them let this life be whatever it was and show them to the next thing in a way that they have a feeling of fullness so they don’t feel like they want to be pulled back to the earth by incompleteness and so they don’t get earth-bound.

I think you have to be awfully strong to be a worker in a hospice. I think you need compassion beyond any measure, and the passion to go on beyond any fulfillment. Then you have to do all of that anyway. I don’t know if there’s enough money in the world to pay a hospice person for the service they render at this important point in a person’s life. A person gets close to God at two important points in their life: at birth and at death. At birth you just came in from God with a message of physical life, and at death you’re going to God with a message of eternal light. So being at anyone’s death is an important place to be, and I wouldn’t want to go in there and mess around with somebody’s mind and emotions.

When a person is dying, it’s a time for them to make peace with everything around them and in them if that’s what they want to do (and some people don’t). And if narcotics dull the pain so they can have peace and not fight, I’d say very little. But I wouldn’t want to relieve the suffering if it was purifying them. There are times when the suffering purifies a person and other times when it pains them, and that’s something that has to be looked at on an individual basis.

There are people in the Movement whose job is to die, and my job is to see that they go to the place in the Spirit realms that we’ve got for them. I know it’s better there than here, and I don’t delay them or try to hold them back unless they agree to the hold back for others around them or to finish something. If they want this (and it’s a spiritual decision), I can often get it for them, though it’s not easy to do, and I have to pay something for it. But for an initiate, I pay nothing. That’s my right, and I exercise it if it’s going to lift more karma for everybody, not only a few people.

If someone I love were dying, I would probably cuddle them up very close in my arms and hold them through their death. (In fact, I’ve done that.) It may be because I’m the only person I know who, when they close their eyes here and they open their eyes there, will be the same. And they’ll know that. I think that moment is when they realize that I kept my word. Up to that point, I have no promise because Travelers don’t make promises for the physical level. But when I say, “I will take you there,” I do that. You won’t know that’s true until you get there. I don’t say believe it; I say do your spiritual exercises and find out ahead of time. But if you don’t want to do them and you just want to trust, it’s not that it won’t be unfolded. Regardless of what anybody says, I do that.

Baruch Bashan.
GO TO ALL ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES, CLICK HERE.

1 thought on “A Necessary Love Affair”

  1. I love you, J-R. Thank you for this beautiful birthday gift. I am reminded of when my father passed away ten years ago now this month and I wrote to you to say “thank you for the gift of grief.” Because of you, J-R, and your teachings I forgave and loved my father again and missed him so, so much when he passed. So I was grateful to grieve. So grateful. I knew that my grief was a measure of my love for him. So thank you J-R, for loving me. Thank you for the gifts of great loving, laughter and grief. I love you to Infinity … and beyond! xo

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *