Love's Inner Courage
There is a therapeutic exercise in which a person plans his own funeral - he is surrounded by loved ones and friends, and he speaks to them, reflecting on his relationship with each one of them. Regrets and appreciations are expressed by all.
I have attempted this therapeutic exercise, in my mind, several times and each time found that the people I was standing among were my children. I wondered to myself what it was that I would want to be able to say to them and to hear from them? What was it that would make me feel proud and satisfied? What did I want to have accomplished with them? And my conclusions were always the same.
I want to have really known them, and I want them to have known the real me. I want to have been close to them. I want to have been a source of pleasure, security, guidance and love for them and them for me. I want to have been able to remind them, along the stepping stones of their life journey, that in our mutual embrace of love we shared joys and sorrows, pleasures and difficulties. I want them to remember that we laughed and cried together, that we shared the dance of life, that we made the time to penetrate the innermost selves of each other and that we shared openly what we found there.
If I can have accomplished this on my route to my journey's end, I think that I, and they, will be quite satisfied - and I can leave this world fulfilled and they can move on with their lives contentedly knowing that I had the courage to let them know who I was, and that they were fully loved for who they really are.
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