“We are all just walking each other home.”

Ram Dass

عزرائيل / עֲזַרְאֵל

Like mist over the moors, a huge sadness hung heavily over me choking out the light in me. I’d just gotten off the phone with a woman who was the sister-in-law of a 75-year-old Australian client I’d signed up two days prior. We were going to craft his memoir.

Death walked him home and the story he wanted to tell was stolen from us.

I’ve written seven memoirs, three of them commissioned by the children of a parent. They want a memory to hold onto when their parents are walked home. They want their children and their children’s children to read about their grandparents and great grandparents.

These experiences have been more than writing a memoir and leaving a history behind. They have been a chance for the children to connect with their parents. I love watching the joy they experience going through old photographs and old memories. The nostalgia is like nectar to their souls: a warm blanket, a bedtime story, biscuits baking in the oven, a soothing hand over a scraped knee and a hug after a broken teenage heart.

It has become apparent to me that my job is not just a chronicler of memories. My job is to bring families together so that they can heal, live, laugh and love. This is a beautiful thing to watch and it brings overwhelming joy to me.

However, it has also become apparent to me that together we’re racing against time, and against the malak that is named: Azraeel, the Angel of Death and the Grim Reaper.

My job is finish up before the Grim Reaper appears.

How can I put this gently? Stop what you’re doing right now and be with your loved ones, Azraeel does not send a memo before he arrives. Go now. Go make right, go love and connect before it’s too late and the bitter taste of regret burns through your heart.

Go now.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

Henry David Thoreau

Photo Credit: GetStencil