Dying with Grace

Through my work as an elder care companion, I was called to sit with a dying woman and be present with her as she fell asleep each night. Not many people have the privilege of sitting with a dying stranger. Tonight is my third night of sitting with Grace (name changed) by her bed at the nursing home. I smile at the wonderful opportunity she is giving me. I wonder how my presence here beside her bed is affecting her. It certainly is changing me. This evening I picked up a book by Stephen Levine called "A Year to Live." It has been on my shelf, unread, for the past two years. I am reading it now, as I sit with Grace, and I am becoming more and more convinced that this is how I would like to live this year, starting now, as though it were the last year of my life. I also like the idea of living it as though it were the first year of my life and I was suddenly thrust into the adult body of an young woman.

Right now I notice more compassion arising in my heart and in the space between thoughts. This compassion softens and gentles the edges of every opposite that occurs in my mind. Compassion is beyond argument or debate. It simply is. And I like that.

...

She is dying, sweet Grace
As I am dying
And you are dying.
We all die as we live.
Grace's body
Softly melds into white pillows under her legs.
Her arms are crossed in her lap.
When her eyes open,
They gaze into space
And seem to open from the inside,
A light radiating
Layers unveiled.
I wonder if she can hear me now
As I write this poem.
"Yes," she says. "It is very beautiful."
Grace,
As I write this poem
I am fluting a beautiful memory of you
Out into earth
For others to read and be touched by.
You may not have friends or family
But you have me and my pen
And I will do my best
To let your light shine through it.

...

Last night
As I was leaving Grace's room
I saw her roommate lying asleep
With a look of utter bliss on her face.
A slight smile on her lips,
Slowly,
She removed her hospital gown.
Smiling more brightly now
She touched each of her breasts
With a look of ecstasy.
A few moments went by
And she touched one arm,
Then the other.
I should not call it touch,
For what she was doing
Was more of an exploration
Or a discovery.
Sunlight shone out of her complexion
Even though it was nighttime
And she was sleeping.

...

I am sitting by the bed of an old woman.
She is preparing to die.
She eats no more food,
Takes no more pills.
He breath moves in and out
Calling her home.
Death stands by her head
Cloaked in black
Hands resting behind her shoulders.
Sun angels shine on the other side of the room:
Bright newness, eagles, dawn.
How interesting that both Death and Dawn Light
Are here in the same room together.
The old woman is wrapped in whiteness
In layers of sheets
Like a mummy
Being prepared for the next stage of the journey.
Whiteness moves into the Spirit realm
Where the owl and the wintertime are waiting.
The old woman is cradled in between,
Held amidst presence and past,
Time and eternity.
She wakes again,
A brief fit of coughing,
Then struggling no more.
Her eyes are open but see nothing,
Breath moves the folds of her neck
Up and down,
Mouth open, lips relaxed and parted,
Chin hanging down.
I wonder which breath will be her last.
How will she go?
Where to?
Perhaps down the infinite galaxy of time
Through a whirlpool of stars
Back home to the Mother.

...

I sit and see
My birth and death standing next to each other.
My warm baby body
Curled up
Pulsing with newness and Spirit.
The same Spirit encircles me on my deathbed.
It is very beautiful.
I am wrapped in white
I see loved ones around me, friends, family.
I am moved by the spectacle of community love.
I am receiving myself
Again
Through the ritual of body.
I am ancient.
I reach back to touch ancestors.
We are all linked by arms and hands
In a chain of forgiveness.
We pause
And look at each other
With the same familiarity
As a husband and wife.
We pause to remember where we have been
And where we are going.
For we are here,
Quite alive,
Ready to be seen and heard in our beauty.

...

When we get old, approaching 100, we become like infants again. We must have other people feed, bathe, and clothe us. We cannot do the simplest things we take for granted most of our lives - other people must do them for us. They say that a baby dies if it is not loved and held. What happens when an aging beauty is not loved and held as she approaches death? In Grace's case, this is her choice - when I ask permission to touch her, she says no. But in my case, when I am old and dying, I would like to be held, touched, and cradled one last time in my corporeal form. That way, when I get to Heaven, maybe I can better remember where I was and who I was, like a fingerprint on a stained glass window.

We are helpless when we are born and helpless when we die. Perhaps this is so our lives will be surrounded by people who care about us, so that we know we are cared for at the edges of our innocent lives.

...

Death is not such a burden. I like to think of death as an old friend who walks beside me. We are living and dying together all the time, in every moment.

...

I see Grace's tongue
Crackled and barren
And wonder if my tongue will ever be like that.
Most certainly, it will.
It will grow old and die and dissolve into earth
The way all tongues do.
Maybe the point is not to have a pretty tongue
But to use it well,
To make beauty with words and song.
Then, if mine gets old and crinkled,
I know it will be because I have used it up completely.
Finished and totally spent,
My tongue will slither into its grave
To sleep happily ever after.