michaelsharrington (Hridayam)

The year, 2026, marked my 20th year as an ‘official’ end of life care provider. In truth, we are all end of life care providers but we don’t know it. Each of these bodies is dying every moment, every day. All the forms are dying and being reborn- over and over it goes.

As one of my ‘end of life’ client-friend’s Jack, at 92 years of age, liked to remind me:

“I know where I’m going. I’ll see you when you get there.” Then we’d laugh together, realizing that ‘there’ is – in reality- only HERE and NOW. This page unveils ‘the idea of time’ well:

http//scienceandnonduality.com/truth-will-set-you-free-time-does-not-exist/

Death is a great paradox because, in truth, no one dies. That does not mean we don’t care or show compassion during this very short sojourn on planet earth. I have been honored to care for those in their last months, weeks and days of human-form existence.

When someone is dying we don’t need to know what they are dying from in order to show that we care. We don’t need to box the illness or disease process. It does not really matter what the signs and symptoms are, or whether the details of the deterioration process has a label like cancer, kidney failure, or heart disease.

This holds true for someone with a chronic illness, which may or may not be immediately ‘life-threatening’. Labels are tied to our beliefs. If someone is sick with cancer—-our belief often sounds like this: ‘There is a really good chance they are dying’ or we play the other side and state: ‘They can beat this thing’—so instantly we project importance to their condition-usually based on our own fear of death. 

At times, hearing of someone’s dis-ease can spur compassion and genuine caring but more often our pity, judgement or condemnation. On the other hand, if someone has been diagnosed with lyme disease or an auto-immune disease,  generally misunderstood conditions with a difficult to distinguish diagnosis, we tend to think: “Well at least they don’t have cancer.” As if to say, their condition is not real, life-altering or somehow has less impact on one’s life.

For instance, if it has been discovered that one has heavy metal poisoning, a rotting root canal, parasites –the actual root physical causative agents behind so many ‘false labels’, most Americans do not believe these toxins are actually causing debilitation. It is a great irony.