This week I posted a link on the Seeds of Support page to this article, written by a mom whose 18-month old son will likely die within the coming months or years.  It is a sad and touching story, and a harsh reminder that death is an inevitable part of every life.

This is the sadder side of life: the ugly truth that most religions prefer to skip over – they preach living without sin so that you might have a happy afterlife, without saying a word about the fact that you will, indeed, die. New Thought authors and motivational speakers also steer clear of the topic of death. They teach about using affirmations and positive thinking to heal, as though it will somehow help you to avoid death altogether. And while the power of a positive attitude and the advances of scientific medicine have both certainly proven themselves useful in postponing death, the fact remains that death is an unavoidable part of life.

Still, I feel that affirmations and positive language are useful tools that certainly have a well-earned place within spiritual living. When Juliet is feeling less than 100% we try to say that she is “healing” rather than using the word “sick”. Mike and I feel it is a small but important distinction: “sick” is a label, an indefinite state of being, whereas “healing” implies a transient and temporary state of action.

I’ve had my own share of “healing” experiences, starting from my very first breath, when I was born with a dislocated hip. My parents had to learn how to care for a newborn in a full body cast. When the cast was removed I remained in a large metal brace for the first year of my life. In second grade a virus settled into my hip and I spent weeks (months? I honestly can’t remember now) on crutches waiting for the bone to heal and muscle strength to be regained. A few years after that it was discovered that I had scoliosis – a curvature of the spine – and I had to spend those already excruciating pre-teen years wearing a hard plastic back brace. A few more years and we found a fracture in my lower spine – it’s still there today. And some day I will die. I don’t have a terminal illness (not that I’m aware of, at least), and I didn’t have a prophetic dream of my demise. But as far as I know everyone dies eventually, and I have no compelling reason to believe my story will end any differently.

Yet, affirming wholeness is a huge part of my spiritual practice. But wholeness is not perfect health. My affirmation isn’t about trying to avoid the unavoidable. Rather, it’s about accepting the totality that is my life. Just as I strive to accept my short stature, wide hips, and discolored teeth, I also strive to accept that aging, illness, and yes, even death, are parts of my life experience.

Of course, none of that attitude helped much when kids were teasing me in middle school because of my strange posture (yes, I did have that whole zen-spiritual-positive attitude thing in middle school – just not in the middle of being tormented). Nor did it do me much good when I was entering my 48th hour of labor with my firstborn (no, I am not exaggerating). But throughout both of those ordeals, and countless others throughout my life that I’ve conveniently forgotten, I still knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I was whole: that my life was perfect, even in the midst of this seemingly imperfect situation. Because life is perfectly imperfect. I am perfectly imperfect.

I am whole. Even when it feels like there are holes in me. Because I AM more than I am. If I can remember this one simple concept and model it for my children, then I’ll have done my job as a mother.