Dealing With My Attachments as Death Approaches

After a few days of sedentary life due to my blood pressure situation and my consequent lack of energy, I had a little more energy today — mostly because I felt the love of friends.

Before dinner, a couple of friends from out of state came to visit, along with my angel friend and her dear husband. All of my visitors today are Baha’is, and we all know each other and are close friends with each other. I felt so uplifted and happy seeing them all. They each follow Abdu’l-Baha’s loving advice to the Baha’is:

We should all visit the sick. When they are in sorrow and suffering, it is a real help and benefit to have a friend come. Happiness is a great healer to those who are ill. In the East it is the custom to call upon the patient often and meet him individually. The people in the East show the utmost kindness and compassion to the sick and suffering. This has greater effect than the remedy itself. You must always have this thought of love and affection when you visit the ailing and afflicted.

After my friends left, I felt more energetic, happier, and somewhat upbeat, so I decided to take my walk. 

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The area of my walk includes both the assisted living section as well as the nursing home section of the facility. I walked a little after 5:00 p.m., the time when the residents have their dinner. The food is brought to the residents’ rooms if they are bed-ridden, or is served in a large and attractive dining room where the residents can socialize with each other.

When I take my walk, I pass by each room and say hi to those who can respond. They were eating their meals and most of them had their TV on with the volume up, so they could hear, each watching their favorite show, mostly the game shows. 

I noticed one female resident in her private room, eating her meal, and staring at her TV — except her TV was off. She seemed so lonely and maybe lost in a different world. I did not want to disturb her, so I just went on my way and made my rounds and at the last round, I noticed that she was not eating her meal and was just holding a piece of food in her hand, lost in her world. It saddened me greatly for her and her loneliness.

I stopped to say hello, but she could not hear me, or at least could not respond — which reminded me that we all need to visit those who are ill while they can still communicate, just as my friends had taken the time to visit me.

After my walk, my blood pressure dropped so low that I could not stay awake. Even when my dinner was delivered, I did not wake up. These past few days, I have been having difficulty bringing my blood pressure to the middle range, and it goes either almost dangerously high or low. My heart, which has been faithfully pumping my blood every day for 87 years now, is getting tired. It is very uncomfortable to live in a state of limbo as my body continues its degradation slightly faster each day. Well, this is expected, after all! My need to sleep more is increasing, and my energy level is decreasing. 

These past two or three days, a few thoughts have circled around in my mind, and they are related to attachment and detachment. I am not clear about them. Hopefully, I will come to a better clarification and understanding of them, but they have to do with detachment from all of the physical conditions of this material life and attachment to one thing — love.

So, after I woke up today, I went to the office of the nursing home administrator, who is a wonderful, loving person loved by everyone here. I asked her, if possible, if I could have certain caregivers attend to me when I am very close to going to my permanent home in the afterlife. I want those who love me to take care of me then. She very gladly promised me that she would fulfill my wish, and I know she will keep her promise. It gave me a deep sense of gratitude as well as comfort. Praised be God for His bounty.

However, on the path of detachment, I continue working on not dictating to God what He should do or give me. I surrender my will to His will. What a feeling of freedom when we really surrender our will to His!

Part of this new focus on detachment — one of the things I’m trying to work on — is to not dwell on the past or focus on the negative issues of life, including any feelings of guilt. In my heart, I know that the Creator has forgiven me (Please God, don’t let this be from my arrogance!!!) — so who am I to hold grudges against myself? 

I am also practicing — and it is hard to do — keeping my mouth shut and purposefully staying quiet. I try to do this even though I already know what a person is saying and do not want to hear it. . In the past, my habit was to be defensive and try to convince that person that they needed to stop lecturing me about this or that unnecessarily. It’s very difficult for me to stay silent and detached in those cases, but I have achieved it at times. If I do, it keeps reminding me that when I become defensive, my ego is working at full speed. I hope I can do the same with less effort since “practice makes it perfect.” So, I am considering this a work in progress toward detachment from my ego, and I know I have a gazillion miles to go to get where I should be. 

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But I do not, as far as I know, have the time to travel that distance. 

These past few days, a good bit of contrary emotions and understandings came upon me. I feel a mild sorrow or sense of loss, but I cannot pinpoint the reason. I truly lack nothing and wish to have nothing, so why am I feeling this sadness? Fortunately, I am aware of the existence of that sadness, but what bothers me about it is that I have not felt as joyful and happy as I want — and those feelings are what I desire to have the most. My guess is that all of this goes to the issue of attachment and detachment. 

This morning, I was reading Baha’u’llah’s Book of Certitude about the “City of God” — which refers to each of the great religious revelations. The passage that struck me most says:

They that valiantly labor in quest of God’s will, when once they have renounced all else but Him, will be so attached and wedded to that City that a moment’s separation from it would to them be unthinkable. They will hearken unto infallible proofs from the Hyacinth of that assembly and receive the surest testimonies from the beauty of its Rose and the melody of its Nightingale. 

This was an eye-opener for me — to learn that there is one attachment God allows and encourages, and that is our attachment to God’s will. So any other attachment, as far as my limited understanding and knowledge dictates to me, is the work of my ego — and my job is to sever myself completely, or as much as my power allows me to do so, from that ego. Man, that is big!