One morning she awoke and she simply knew. Right time was drawing near. She smiled, and began the slow, painful movements of getting out of her bed.
It felt just as she'd expected it to: there was a deep calmness, a slow sweet sense of anticipation of a time not far off, when she'd be free. No more pain and stiffness, no more need to tend all of the needs of her deteriorating body, a task that grew more daunting every day....
The morning sunlight streaming in her window warmed the twisted hands curled around the warm cup of coffee. She wondered idly, if she would miss these things: these precious creature comforts, then smiled again, remembering that it was the body that loved them so, not her Soul. Touch, sight, smell, taste, sound, all of these gifts would simply be soon no longer needed.
It was finally time to let her beloveds know the time had come to begin the Last Journey. The plans had been laid down long ago. There would be feasting and giveaways and celebrations shared, as many as felt fitting to all. There would be quiet times alone with each, where words left to be shared could be shared, healing tears could fall, sweet and sacred silences filled with free flow of lifetime love shared...
And then it would be time. The Council of Elders would come to accompany her to her chosen place under the willows beside the stream. They would sit with her as she sipped the potion and slid into peaceful sleep. They would lay on each side of her, holding her during the waiting time and the Souls Release. They would tenderly take her body to the fire, then be with her beloveds to comfort and sustain, and together all would bring her ashes back to the willows and the waters and it would be finished.
Her Soul, thus freed, would be dancing, she imagined, delighting in freedom from all constriction of body and mind, it would be as the sweet breezes, always in graceful motion, in love with the inside of each and every moment, able to fill the hearts of those she loved so long with unadulterated, unconditional love and laughter and joy.....even as it took whatever shape and form it desired, whether pebble or winged one or leaf or blade of tall grass waving in a meadow, or all of these at once mattered not because it was all love, all love, all love...
Her coffee had grown cold and the sun had risen higher in the sky. She had been sitting still far too long again: getting up would hurt. But not for much longer, she thought, with a smile. Not for much longer.
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This then, is how my life would end, if I had the right to choose how to leave this world, now that I am an old woman in a worn out body.