The last breath (day 16)

There will be a last breath.  Just like there was a first.   Sometimes I visualize the last breath and what it might be like to not breathe in again.  Would it be better to know and be absolutely conscious of the last breath?  In that case, would the last breath be somewhat willed?  How is it that whatever it is that makes us breathe in again just doesn't activate after the last breath?  Is that when the fear sets in?  Is it like drowning or floating?   Or maybe the last few breaths are more and more willed until you realize that you are just delaying the inevitable.  The last breath is then the final renunciation.  In some ways I prefer that scenario because it allows for a certain control about when the last breath will be.  The first scenario is much more of an imposition.

I have a friend who was declared dead for a few moments before being revived.  She says that first breath back was violent and highly unwelcome.  She had been going somewhere better.  Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor also died for a moment when she had a stroke and she speaks of not knowing how she would ever get back into her body, her consciousness having become so spacious.   It's almost as if the breath is the thing that keeps us attached to our bodies.  Our consciousness passes through it like a funnel and becomes contained by it, by its rhythm and boundaries.

It's maddening that so many humans have had a last breath and yet each one of us has to wonder what it's like still.  And when I go through it, if I'm conscious, I wonder if I'll have the unsatisfiable urge to tell everyone.

A song for this post.