The Living~Dying Duet: Thinking and Feeling about my Living and Dying

Living and Dying: Thinking About Them and Feeling About Them in my Life

My life has become a Living~Dying Duet. I didn't realize that at first -- after my diagnosis with Early-Stage Dementia I only felt dying, and after that I felt living and dying were dancing solos. It was only when I realized that they were both dancing in my life that I started feeling the connection between them.

Feeling the connection between living and dying was part of what dementia was doing to me. My mind was becoming less and less capable, and I felt my brain slowly disintegrating. But less thinking brought with it more feeling. I was feeling things I had never felt before, and frequently so.

This new level of feeling was coming from somewhere, but I didn't know from where. So I started to refer to that place, the source of my feeling, as my "guts". My guts are to my feeling what my mind is to my thinking.

I wouldn't have been able to relate to my living and my dying in the way that I am without giving a place to my mind and a place to my guts.