Kelsey Collins - Exit Strategy

Today I learned that my dear friend Kelsey Collins transitioned on Sunday.  The news is devastating. I am in shock.  She was a friend that I loved dearly .  We had lunch on Friday in Sisters and walked in the woods with her dog Lilly.  As always we talked of happy things.  My trip. Her book. Her radio program.  She had recorded it previously for broadcast last Saturday.  She was happy but she was always happy and full in the spirit of life. She was also full of the spirit beyond life and exceptionally aware of the transition between the two.  I cannot believe the news.  We shared our thoughts with each other.  There was nothing at all that indicated her intention.  Perhaps that is something I think I should of detected.  On the other hand Kelsey might say that a smooth transition gives no indication of any change.

She drove her car up into the mountains near Sisters and shot herself.  Mortally an abrupt change.  It always is.   I believe however that what she taught and how she practiced her life was and continues to be the essence of what she has given us.  The transition from life is one that should be smooth and beautiful.  It is so if we believe it to be so and practice it by preparing ourselves for leaving life with grace and dignity as an Exit Strategy.  A strategy that when incorporated into our life assures a smooth transition of the spirit.  When the time comes we are therefore prepared for that transition.  Where we go to in that transition is anywhere we believe we go.

We all have a belief of where we go in the transition.  The beauty is that absence of a thing or state of being is by virtue of being nothing, or no-thing,  is also a conceptual state of being.  A paradox of our mind and conscious.

Kelsey is now beyond transition and in a state of being with her dearly loved ones that she always believed existed beyond transition.  Perhaps she thought more of the loved ones that she was transitioning towards more than the loved ones she would transition from.  She left behind for us everything that her immense spirit was.  I believe there were final thoughts of all of us on this side of transition at the last moment as well as thoughts of those on the other.  Both thoughts were blissfully happy.

I celebrate her life and hold her spirit in my heart.  That is also a place that she believed that we would forever live in spirit every time we said "I love you". 

Kelsey was a wonderful inspiring person.  She leaves her spirit with me but I will so deeply miss her presence in my life

Kelsey chose to do this.  She lived a life of grace and dignity and chose this "Exit Strategy".  That term is also the title of her book.  Her son and her husband also made this choice.  I’ll never know what went through her mind in those moments leading to her final choice in life to “transition” as she would call it to another state of being that she believed in.  I choose to believe that despite the circumstances she died as she lived.  With grace and dignity.

She leaves a big hole in my heart, my being, my life.  I will accept that with grace and dignity and gratitude for the time I have known this wonderful women that I loved.

Kelsey's spirit lives in many places now and in so many hearts.  One of those places is her Saturday radio show.  Listen to her spirit there and take it into your heart.