“We have got to do our phone number/e-mail exchange this visit,” I said to two of my dearest friends on a recent visit to Arizona. They knew the exchange has to do with ending times for each of us: the time when our kids will need to know who our friends are, the time when […]
I was ambivalent about giving my granddaughter my old Micky Mouse watch. Only 11, she has managed to avoid and has been protected from most of the constraints of time. But she is beginning to take the bus to school and was anxious about getting to the bus stop on time. Easing her anxiety took
The Swan by Rilke, Translated by Robert Bly This clumsy living that moves lumbering as if in ropes through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks. And to die, which is the letting go of the ground we stand on and cling to every day, is like the swan,
“I’m 87?” He was astonished to hear this, having been told that his birthday had been two days earlier. “People die when they are 87!”. My former patient with advanced Alzheimer’s, had found the word “die” in his vocabulary. This was fascinating as he (and many of us) live in a world where the word
“Do you suppose I would ever wear this?” My sister-in-law held up a pink cluster of chiffon and lace. It was a “semi-formal” evening gown as my mom would have called it. She would have worn it on some long-ago New Year’s Eve when she and dad dressed to the nines and went dancing
“She looks just like she always has, but when I come to see her at the end of each day, she’s just not there, there.” – husband of a patient as he described the pain of watching his wife with Alzheimer’s. One cannot be a doula for very long without getting a patient who has
In the two years before he died, my friend Dan worked on his “Dharma Box”. He sourced the idea from Anyen Rinpoche’s Book, Dying with Confidence: A Tibetan Buddhist Guide to Preparing for Death. Rinpoche describes a dharma box as a container which holds all the various treasures one might collect when reflecting on their
During the past eleven months, I have been the distance learning “coordinator” for my family. Each day, my 7- and 11-year-old grandchildren have bent over their Chrome Books as they navigated their school year in my office and at my dining room table. So, it was not surprising when I wondered aloud about the topic
I’m still on the phone when the timer goes off. The kitchen is a hodgepodge of open flour and sugar canisters (for the Guinness Stout chocolate cake) and the cutting board with chopped garlic and tomatoes (for the pasta). How did everything get so disorganized? I need to end this call! Where is that oven
A patient of mine was discussing the holidays with me and remarked that she really did not know what to think about them as she had not expected to be here for another Christmas. She said that these holidays did not seem real to her as she is not a part of this life anymore.
