Yana Colquitt | IT Program Coordinator
As I stood there realising something I was scared of my whole life just happened to me, I couldn’t help but observe the beauty and the grandness of this moment. The love of my life, my husband and father of my kids stopped breathing. Yet I could feel how the entire room just filled up with the light and warmth and the sense of freedom…
What is death? Death is what we make it. We have no control over how and when it comes but we have an ability to make it non-scary. The key is to realise that it is not the end, it is actually most likely the beginning of something greater, the opportunity to feel LOVE like never before, to feel at HOME, to find all your long-forgotten abilities and to feel ONENESS with everything again. There are no dark places, no judgements, no meeting of your sins and shadows. There is no “other side”. It is all the same side, just the matter of how you experience it in the body vs without the body.
What is death? Death is the freedom to remember who we truly are!
Our story could be in a romantic movie…Dave and I met only 8 years ago but knew instantly our souls were meant to be together. We healed each other’s wounds, learnt to trust and love unconditionally, found our true selves together. Always together. Hand in hand.
Then the cancer diagnosis came (Melanoma). It came in waves: stage 1—surgery and clear; 2 years later stage 3—surgery and therapy and clear again; 2 more years later stage 4—metastatic-therapy, radiology and near death but clear again.
Living so close to death strips all your “important” things down to the base. And the base is—LOVE. There is absolutely nothing in this life that matters other than LOVE. One day at a time, present only, no past and no future. This way you are ready for the death and are no longer afraid. This was my Dave…
Cancer came back. This time it was quick, like it had a purpose to take him. Dave was 46 years old…
There comes a moment in time you realise you have to let go. I knew I had to let go so the new beginning for my loved one can come. The only thought I had in my head: “if these are his final days, I have to make it as easy as possible for him. I have to farewell him with light and love he was giving me all these years. I have no right to think about myself now. Only to show him he can fly away knowing kids and I will be fine.”
So, I did. I just loved him too much to be selfish. We spent his last 6 days at home. I played music, opened windows to let the sun in, burnt smell good candles. I let kids talk to their dad and hug him as normal as it could be even though he could no longer answer them. Death is what you make it!
Cancer. I’m grateful it was cancer. It gave us time! So much time! Time to accept our mortality, to live life every day and to love unconditionally. It opened our hearts. It made us as ready as we could be.
P.S. Rules by Dave, the most amazing human and the most pure soul I’ve met in this lifetime:
You don’t know when you are going to die, so stop worrying about it. Trust in God.
Accept every day as it is and look for love and joy in it.
You are entitled to nothing. Give unconditionally and be grateful.
—Yana Colquitt (2024)
Editor’s note: Originally from Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, Yana immigrated to Australia in 2013. She met Dave in Sydney in 2015 and they soon began a family together. Yana and Dave were together 8 years before Dave succumbed to cancer in November 2023. Dave died peacefully at home in the loving presence of Yana and their two children.
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