Death

My Transformation, and Rebirth

The Death card is the most feared and misunderstood card in the tarot. People see its black horse and skeletal rider and assume it means the end of life.

However, Death is not about the body. It’s about transformation. It’s about the death of illusions, roles, and the false identities that no longer serve us.

It’s about one cycle of life endings and creating an opening for the beginning of a new chapter in your life.

For me, Death showed up not as a single moment, but as a season of erasure, grief, and transformation. It was the death of my ego, the end of my family of origin’s narrative, and the painful rebirth into a new life with a new family and my wife Jessica.

When the work I’ve been doing on myself with therapy, books, and heart felt conversations with Jessica began to dismantle my domesticated narrative.

“You’ve changed.” My ex-wife and my older sister both told me, not as praise, or encouragement, but as an insult.

They said it as if transformation were shameful, as if growth were betrayal. What they couldn’t see was that the whole purpose of living is to change, to transform, to become more than we were yesterday. Their words were meant to wound, but they only revealed how trapped they were in their own self-preservation, stagnant waters where blame replaces self-examination.

For me, change meant boundaries. It meant saying no where I used to sacrifice. It meant honoring my mental and physical health instead of feeding their control. And in their rejection, I heard the death rattle of my old ego. The shrieks of the self who had lived to please, to serve, to sacrifice, as it died inside of me.

The Death of Family Illusion

The breaking point came slowly, then all at once.

At my parents’ 80th birthday party, my older sister ignored Jessica entirely, treated her like a stranger. Later, she accused me of not being a “good” son because I couldn’t drop my life and help with their move. She demanded I pay for half the cost of the party, which she was recycling the next day for her son-in-law’s birthday.

Her control spread wider. Invitations to holidays went missing. My cousin told me about Fourth of July gatherings I never knew of, while my ex-wife had already been invited. Eventually, Jessica and I were erased completely from Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The knife came with a smile. A drunken text from my mother: “Having so much fun at your sister’s house!” The reminder that my existance had been replaced.

Then came the picture.

Jessica saw it first and tried to shield me, but the truth has a way of surfacing. A photo on social media showing my older sister, my younger sister, their children and grandchildren, all gathered together. And there, smiling among them, my ex-wife. My daughters at her side.

That was the moment of death.

The crushing grief of being abandoned, erased, declared dead while still alive. I was a ghost.

The Rebirth

Death doesn’t come only to end something. It comes to clear the ground for something new.

In the ashes of that grief, I grew.

My relationship with Jessica deepened. My bond with my stepchildren became rooted in honesty and trust. I embraced my role as husband and partner with a devotion I had never known before. A relationship built on the foundation of emotional presence, conversations, and connection rather than anger, insult, or silence.

I began to write again. I read voraciously. I examined myself, questioned my reality, and uncovered the magic I had buried under years of servitude to others’ needs.

Death did not destroy me. It transformed me.

The Lessons of Death

1. Death Is the End of Illusion The swamp you’ve been told is lakefront property must be seen for what it is. The mask must fall.

2. Death Is the Death of Ego The part of us that sacrifices our truth to survive must die so that our authentic self can live.

3. Death Is Grief Endings hurt. We must mourn the family, the role, the identity we thought we had.

4. Death Is Rebirth From endings come beginnings. From ashes, new life. From rejection, the freedom to build something real.

Practical Application

If Death shows up for you, ask yourself:

• What am I clinging to that has already died?
• Where do I need to grieve so I can release?
• What new life is waiting for me once I stop resisting the ending?

Write a funeral for an old identity, role, or relationship that no longer serves you. Then write a birth announcement for what you are stepping into for this new beginning of your life.

Death stripped me of illusions. It cut me out of the family narrative I had once longed to belong to. It brought grief deeper than I thought I could bear.

Death also freed me. It gave me back myself. It gave me Jessica, my marriage, my stepchildren, my writing, my magic.

Death didn’t come to punish. It comes to transform.

And transformation is the point of our existence.

Become the Pheonix, the Monarch Butterfly that emerges from its chrysalis at TarotChris.com