A few months before my sister died she invited my brother and I to her time share in Neuvo Vallarta, Mexico. Now, to go there without her was not something I was looking forward to. But I did it for my brother-in-law and thought it would be fun to golf and just hang out with Don, as it always is.

 Every evening I would pull up a lounge chair on the beach and watch the sun set over the pacific. One of my colleagues from work had given me the book The Why Café and I saved it to read just before the sunset as one would savor a very fine French wine. Each sunset was different yet equally spectacular and as I watched it sink into the ocean I would ponder over some wise thought from The Why Café such as: good things happen to people who are doing what they are meant to do in life or that people do whatever they have to do in order to fulfill their life’s purpose. 

Here I was almost sixty and still asking myself that existential question: why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Although I had asked myself this question over and over again from one decade to the next, I would get only fleeting answers. Nothing that was permanent.

The author, John P. Strelecky also asks the question: are you afraid of death and through his character, Casey, a waitress in the café states that those who are afraid of dying are those who feel that they have not had the chance to do what they wanted to do in life. Casey goes on to say How can you be afraid of not having the time or chance to do what you want to do when you’ve already done it?   

I watch the sun sink between two pieces of drift wood and wondered if my sister had done what she had wanted to do by the time she died. 

I sat sensing her absence in the chair next to mine. There was so much that went unsaid between her and I, especially in the last days of her life. There were no more words. Only our energy fields and mine frightened me.  

 Here’s Sting singing Jacques Brel’s great Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t leave Me).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQkplGz05c&feature=related