We All Have Two Lives

                                                                         Second Life

“We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one.

Let this be that moment.

Let now be when you wake up to this one precious life

Let this one be when you choose to live like you mean it.”

Anonymous (from Facebook)

          In November 2007, I sat in my mother’s room at the nursing home. She was now on hospice and actively dying. I had picked up a milkshake from Dairy Queen on the way—strawberry, her favorite—and she begged me, “Jane, please don’t make me eat.” I knew she was truly choosing to be done with life and that I should allow her to go. As I sat there in silence, she with closed eyes, I realized two things: (1) she was only twenty years older than I, and (2) if I had expectations for the rest of my life, I’d better get on with them. It was a turning point for me. Since then, I have devoted myself to art and writing, and to understanding and exploring the human soul. This is my second life. The one I choose for myself.

          My son, Jake, expresses it this way: “I spent a long time with several different lives—the one I wanted to believe I was living, the one I thought I deserved, and the one I wanted the world to believe I was living. When all was said and done, which for me took reducing my life to a smoldering ruin, I realized the only thing that mattered for me was a life aligned with purpose, self-fulfillment, and right-sized expectations.” His turning point was hitting bottom and finding the only way up was a long, hard climb. Now his life is as he designed it to be—one of purpose and community. A second life worthy of that laborious climb.

          I read a sermon by Rabbi Margot Stein that speaks directly to this second life phenomenon. She said, “Unetaneh tokef asks, ‘who shall live and who shall die?’ Who shall really and truly LIVE, and who shall die a thousand deaths before the final one? Who shall live paralyzed by fear? And who shall die in a healing circle of deep love?”

          Rabbi Stein speaks of the practices in her tradition called, “teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah,” which mean, “turning our lives in a new direction, pouring out our hearts to the Holy One, and giving financial support to those who have been badly wounded by the world or who are working to heal the world.” These, she says, will help us in the life we are living right now.

          Our second life is not chosen by our peers or our parents or our society. It is chosen by our soul. Our second life has to do with fulfilling our soul’s purpose here on earth. You don’t need to wait for someone you love to die for this to happen. All you have to do is wake up and claim this one precious life as your own. And then go out there and live like you mean it.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                    Jane