Preparing to Contemplate My Mortality

This contemplation calls me, bids me into its grace.
  To ponder my mortality, to consider the transition...
  It weighs upon my heart, shadows my consciousness.

So, to it I come, not fully prepared, nor completely willing.
  
We all walk in the unspoken truth that our time here is finite.
  But so engaged are we in the passing of our days that this truth
  fades into the recesses of our souls awaiting its time... and our time.

It's not a bad thing, really.  We are here, on this plane, for a reason.
  To engage, to live fully, is the purpose, the blessing, the joy, the gift.
  We are invited to experience the rapture, the wonder, of this thing, life.
  
And, we are invited to face the inexorable truth that this walk is ephemeral.

A contemplative moment is upon me, precious yet daunting.  
  Spirit has graced me with the occasion to face my mortality,
  to come to terms with this ultimate reality, my ultimate reality.

But, I have been avoiding it, for to allow it is to face my demise.
  I am fully vested in this thing, being human, this life, my life.
  And really, I am a novice at dying, an apprentice, a rookie.

I have never before died, and only once have I felt it close.

Where to start, to end...how to get to this place of Spirit, 
  but through the morass that is my unfledged humanness.
  My father and mother taught me how to live and how to die.  

And while those priceless gifts are emblazoned upon my soul,
  I realize that this journey is one upon which only I can embark.
  The greatest gifts will come as I step foot upon this path, my path.