Feelings welled up inside my stomach and my throat, but I kept them hidden. I didn’t want to start crying!
This woman who was a total stranger to me answered many questions about her pain, how she felt…many personal questions about her life.
She was so brave.
When I left, I gave her a little hug, and then went to my car. In the driver’s seat, sitting in the big parking lot, I wept.
I thought “I’m not sure I can handle this job”.
But the next day, I drove to someone else’s home to interview THEM on their quality of life.
Some people had cancer, some had heart disease, some had ALS.
By the third patient, I relaxed. I didn’t have the simple version of inquiry we all know as The Work in my life yet, but I had other self-inquiry after quite a few years of really beginning to investigate the meaning of This.
And here was my next phase. Meeting people who knew they were on their way out, with limited time….people of all ages.
It was the gift of a lifetime. I started thinking I can’t believe I have such an amazing job, to be able to realize that everyone was the same as me, not different.
That day when the woman with only a little time left contacted me, I might have had thoughts like “this will be hard” or “this is sad” or “she is frightened (and I can’t help her)” but while they tried to arise….I knew they weren’t true.
Who would you be without the thought that if you only have two months left to live, it’s *terrible*?
Without the thought that this is an example of great suffering in a harsh world?
That she can’t handle….or I can’t handle…the body’s decline and death?
Who would I be without the thought that I couldn’t help her?
I’d be there. I’d do The Work with her.
Funny, her thoughts were no different than any of mine, or any I have heard before. “I’m going to die” and “I shouldn’t die” and “this is shameful” and “I can’t stand this” and “people feel sorry for me (and I hate that).”
I turn my own thoughts around, the ones trying to get some energy or some volume, the ones I used to think all the time before meeting so many people over the years who were in hospice…
….I can handle this. Because I’m the one here, I’m the one.
I can handle the body’s decline and death, because everyone handles it.
I can help her, and I don’t have to even do anything except show up (and another turnaround, I can’t help her.…and that’s the way of it, not really a problem).
“When you’re not thinking about death, you fully accept it. You’re not worrying about it at all. Think of your foot. Did you have a foot before you thought of it? Where was it? When there’s no thought, there’s no foot. When there’s no thought of death, there’s no death.” ~ Byron Katie
I can be here, with anyone, in any situation. So can you. You don’t need to know how to do it.
Love, Grace