Tree Down

Dec 10 2009

Cumulative loss is something they warn us about in Hospice.   As a comfort therapist, I work with people in their last days.  Some, I only see for a few weeks, and they are gone.  Others, I see for months, and they are gone.  I am not at bedside when they pass, but occasionally I am invited to remember with friends and family.  It is always a sense of wonder and astonishment that settles over me as I listen to the stories and look at the pictures.  I talked with this person.  I rubbed this person's feet.

Sometimes cumulative loss is too heavy and I stumble under the load.  Other times, it just seems matter of fact.  We live.  We die.  After a certain age, or a certain epoch, death shows itself  much more common that we thought, in our green wood days.

Nothing dulls the sharp stab of losing someone unexpectedly, and hardly less, of losing someone slowly.  They are gone.  And we, we must go on under the mantle they leave behind.  To lose their physical presence is hard enough; but to contemplate losing the heart, the spirit, that is too much.  This cumulative loss I will not consent to endure.

Live then, live in the communion of my heart, of my spirit, and through my hands, and my words, and my eyes, and my thoughts.  Can you hear me? l’m still talking to you.