“I want to hear that poem again.” The poem is by Robert Frost, and I have never particularly liked it. But for the 15th time in the month, I take it out and read it to my patient. I am not sure how we began this routine; when we met, she told me that she liked old-fashioned poetry and she would like me to read to her, and this one seemed to fit. But as we read it each week—sometimes twice—it has deepened in meaning for me. The “pause” the man is making in the poem is one we tend to make during the winter season, at least here in the Midwest where snow and ice storms can make it impossible to travel. Frost captures the power of nature and reminds us that we humans, despite our efforts to do so, cannot control the life force–especially the pace of the end of life itself. His poem is haunting in the quiet despair; one can feel the loneliness. My patient tells me that she is thinking about her death as I read. She knows that she has a way to go before she will get there, even though she is ready. She says the poem soothes her and that is all that counts.
The darkness of the season is particularly poignant this winter. Short days contrast with all the lights: the ice itself and the reflections on the snow, Menorahs and Christmas trees and twinkly outside sparkles as we enter our third cold season of Covid. We are all exhausted. I hate that I must be shielded and masked while talking about the most intimate aspects of a person’s life. That wall of protection, while essential, does not seem right given the significance of the topic, the need for eye contact and touch. There is a kind of coldness in the way we must all be protective and careful.
I am learning in this work that the act of dying is quite exhausting. To let go of life requires a kind of vulnerability that most of us do not know how to express. Vulnerability requires us to be open, to be willing to say “I love, I need, come here” in ways we may have never expressed before. Brene Brown in her work on vulnerability says that we get some of the courage we need to be vulnerable from the stories we tell. She calls those life stories “data with a soul.”
So, I talk to my patient about her stories, her favorite holidays, favorite gifts as she expresses the love she had in delighting her children during the winter months of their childhood. How she liked to take them sledding and how they all laughed over their hot chocolate. I can see her reliving these stories and watch as she begins to let them go, to let go of this life, getting ready for the miles she has before, as she calls it, her last “sleep.” My job is to listen to her, to mirror back to her so that she can reflect on whatever she wishes. This is her gift to me as we go on exploring.
This tends to take the chill out of this winter.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.