Memento Mori

A memory to anchor and inspire us

Skeletal claws of darkness

It’s inevitable, death, and the Latin phrase Memento Mori reminds us Remember you must die.

I never used to understand the role of making time and space for pain, for working on healing, or endings, or death. I guess I just thought (although mostly subconsciously) that I could outrun my pain, or find a really good hiding place away from it all.

If I could ignore or avoid it for long enough it would all go away.

Making space for every part of being human is important now to me though.

This includes making space for pain, trauma, endings and also death.

We could easily spend our lives trying to avoid it, but inevitably it confronts all of us at some point in life. Whether it be our thoughts and fears of it, or the death of loved ones, or even strangers, or our aging and fragility.

Death asks us not to forget about it because in remembering it as a truth we are also reminded to truly live.

Life is a precious gift and as humans, we can easily and quickly forget this, like anything we often fall into the trap of taking things for granted.

When I was in a traumatic car accident, I was for a brief amount of time (and the longest moment ever) trapped inside the car.

I believed the car was going to catch on fire and I was going to burn alive.

I honestly believed I was going to die that day.

I didn’t think I was going to live to see tomorrow in those moments.

Aside from the ongoing residual trauma that this experience left me with, it also was a pivotal point of waking up for me.

It was a powerful reminder of the temporal nature of life, and in many ways, that experience was a blessing because of this gift.

When I reflect on my life now, I feel more willing to take the risks that feel right to me, more able to understand the importance of living life to the fullest, and more in tune with the possibility that death could be around any corner.

This isn’t only because of the car crash either, but because of a variety of wake-up moments that shocked me into a deeper understanding of myself and life, and a growing awareness of what it’s all about.

The universe is often trying to nudge and support us to live our best life while we are here on earth. It’s our ability to perceive this and willingness to move with nature that shifts our reality, not luck, in my opinion.

We must live our life to the fullest whilst we are alive.

We must realize being alive is about living.

We mustn’t be so afraid we forget to live.

The idea of dying caused me great anxiety and fear for a long time, especially after the car accident. I felt death was waiting for me around every corner and I had to outsmart or avoid it.

Death is something many of us spend time avoiding in hopes we won’t have to face it ourselves, but we all will.

Remembering I will die now reminds me why every day I wake up and feel such joy in the sunrise. Why my heart fills with gratitude for the opportunity to be alive.

Why it’s worth the risk to put my heart and soul into all I do.

I want to live my life experiencing the full spectrum of sensations.

I want to live to the fullest of my abilities.

Rather than fearing the skeletal claws of darkness I’m trying to allow them to anchor and inspire me to truly live.

Thanks Diana C. for this prompt that served as the inspired for this article 🧡!