I recently completed a certification program for End of Life Doula training. Parts of the program were familiar and a revisiting of skills already acquired in ten plus years of being a touch therapist, and in the past few years, a touch therapist who lays her hands on the dying. We had many assignments over the course of this program, some of them deeply confronting. All of them designed to break through our own fear and resistance to dying. While I was in this course I experienced the death of my second marriage. Completing some of the assignments was difficult to say the least, not just because they were confronting, but because I was in a sea of emotional turmoil. The one assignment that I was not able to complete was a letter to a loved one. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The pain of saying goodbye, even though it wasn’t immediate, was just too much against the backdrop of my anguish and failure in my marriage.

So I write this letter now, having just watched the movie Interstellar for the second time. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to. I often tell people that I don’t cry. It’s true that it takes a lot to get me to shed tears. When everyone else is crying I’m the one handing out tissues, giving other people the space for their sadness. I build up walls to hold back my own knowing that at some point later on the dam will burst. Interstellar is a movie that did the job of breaking down the dam. It’s a movie about time, about relational concepts that transcend our understanding of what it is to love someone. It’s a movie about the goodbyes we didn’t say because we couldn’t say them, because we simply didn’t know if it was goodbye or not. It’s a movie about waiting…a lot of waiting. It’s a movie about hope, death, rebirth, loss, and ultimately faith. Faith that someone we love will return to us in the face of the impossible. And so, I write this letter of goodbye to my daughter in the hope that someday, after I’m gone, she will know that all I’ve done is transcend to another dimension and in this transcendence my love for her has amplified in immeasurable quantities.

Dear Summer, my love,

How do I tell you all that is on my mind? How can I possibly? I hope that by the time you read this that I have in fact already shared with you all of these musings while I was alive, and that this is simply a refresher of all the ramblings that I once said. I hope that you have filled your life in pursuing your passions. I hope you keep learning because learning keeps you young. I have truly loved and been honored to be the one you chose to facilitate your being. I’ve told you this before and I will tell you again how you came to be. When I was ready to have you, I looked up into the heavens and said, “send her to me.” And heaven sent you immediately when your father and I were ready to conceive you. This is why I’ve always called you my Star Child, because that is your origin of place, the stars.

Sadly, I know what it is to look up into the night sky and know that you are looking at your home. I hope you find home here in the people you love like I have. I hope you find that one person who, when you hug them, you feel a sense of home like you’ve never felt before. I hope you determine your purpose and are able to achieve all that you set out to do. I hope you are able to communicate what’s important to you and speak your truth even if your voice shakes. I hope that your life is a never ending journey of adventure and discovery.

I want you to know how proud I am of whom you have become. What I love about you most is your curiosity, your kindness, your keen sense of observation, your sense of humor, and your immeasurable ability to love. You are a beacon of light in what can be a very dark world at times. Being your mother has been the greatest journey of my life. It has brought me purpose like none other. You have been my greatest teacher and I thank you for every moment we’ve had together, even the difficult ones. Thank you my love for all that you have brought into my life in just being you, my Summer Skye.

Mama

Thank you for reading this. I’ve written most of this through watery eyes. I’m glad that I finally wrote this. Someday I hope she reads this and is comforted. You may be wondering if I’m ok. No, I’m not. There are days when I want to close my eyes and not wake back up. There are days when veering into oncoming traffic seems tempting. Will I? No. I have a daughter to raise who, as flawed as I am, needs me around for as long as possible. And given my mental state of the past few months there were days when I almost wrote this letter with the desire of leaving early. Those of you closest to me know what’s going on in my personal life right now which I mentioned above, and also know that there are details I have not yet shared with you. Those of you who don’t know what’s going on just know that my marriage has ended. What the final outcome of this death will be remains to be seen. Right now we are orbiting in the liminal space of waiting. Waiting for what? I don’t fully know yet. All I can do is have faith that somewhere in the waiting, and in the transmission of messages, there are solutions to problems that seem insurmountable. That the signals will make it through the blackhole of our current existence. That love will out. That we will, in fact, be saved by ourselves.

“Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” ~Brand, Interstellar