As we sit by the bedside of the loved one who is lingering and suspended, as it were, between two worlds, we realize hoe puny we are in the presence of death, and how much we lean on the loving kindness and mercy of the Universal Consciousness, or to believers, on God...
What is life then, we might ask, if the end is so painfully drawn out...I'm beginning, more and more, to believe what I had read once long ago that all of life is, and should be, a preparation (not only physically, but mentally and spiritually), for death. Young and strong, I had scoffed at it, but now I realize the wisdom in these words. It is a preparation not only for those who are going through the experience of death, but for those who sit hour after hour by the bedside of the loved one going through this experience. When memories come pouring into the mind, when the heart seems as if it will break with the weight of things left unsaid and undone, when unanswerable questions batter the brain, how does one cope??
When those who knew the loved one visit the family and reminisce, one realizes that one had missed out on a lot of facets of the loved one's personality...one realizes that this loved one had touched many lives and meant a great deal to many people, people who one never knew existed.
Sitting by the bedside of the loved one, and saying good bye is the most painful experience one can ever go through, especially if the loved one is lingering, caught between two worlds, as it were. You can actually see the transformation and it is the most humbling experience ever. My cousin who is with us was telling us how in the last moments we should not touch the loved one because nothing should come between the communion of the soul with its Source. If we touch the loved one, or express our grief, it will distract the soul of the loved on in its communion. The soul will not want to leave the grieving people at his/her bedside, That really brought home to me how awesome death is...one can only stand in silence with bent head in lowliness and submission in the face of this most powerful of forces...