Have you ever played the question game?
When you ask each other really crazy questions?
Would you rather live in a tiny house in the woods or a mansion in a big city?
Would you rather lick the subway floor or lick a handrail at a stadium?
Would you rather die a sudden unexpected death or a slow painful death?
Don’t we always answer sudden death?
It’s a morbid and terrible thought, especially now, but isn’t that the better choice?
That’s the only thing that makes me feel better. Knowing that he would’ve chosen sudden over terrible and drawn out.
One day we were laying on the picnic blanket. The kids were catching butterflies, or blowing dandelions, or climbing trees.
He quoted Crazy Horse. “Today is a good day to die.” I understood it to mean that all is right in my world, I am present and today was a good day.
I did a little research though because I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly.
I like the way Neil Douglas-Tubb describes it best:
Crazy Horse’s actual quote translates into English as follows: “Today is a good day to die for all the things of my life are present.”
He explains, “The key to the quote comes in understanding that from the native prospective, wisdom and wholeness are not seen as a result of the passage of time necessarily; you don’t have to be old to be wise. But rather it is measured by how one lives each moment, in and to the fullness, by how they enter into each moment, with a sense of completeness by walking lightly. “
We would say, “Ahhhh, it’s a good day to die…” sometimes to each other in a dreamy, sleepy state. After a really good day of doing outdoor projects, playing with the kids, having a picnic, and then going to bed with the windows open.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that now, though.
I think it is only something you say when you have no fear. When you are young and healthy.
I think you only say it when there is no chance in hell you’re going to die that day.
