I lost a client this week. I lost her suddenly. Last I saw her some of her treatments were working, some were not. One thing was abundant: her pain. Her pain was something that she just couldn’t get under control. After I’d work on her she always said that her pain levels were down. I hoped that was in fact the case. When you work with someone for an extended period of time, be it months or years, you get to know them. You develop rapport & connection. And eventually people tell you things. Their stories of self. Their journey through diagnosis and treatment. Their fears. She had shared hers with me in a moment that was so tender I’ll never forget it. She just wanted to make it to 65 so that her husband could collect her social security after her death. She just wanted him to have some more financial security so that they both could rest easier. I don’t believe she made it to 64.

I don’t know the details of her death. I received the text from her husband the day after she died. I only met him the first time I came to their house in April of last year. There was still some snow on the ground. Sometimes a spouse is uneasy about being around for their husband’s or wive’s treatment, so they make themselves scarce when I show up. This was the case here which is fine, I get it. They want their spouse to have a sacred, private experience. So he would always retreat upstairs when I showed up leaving us to have our time together. She would tell me about how navigating her work while being in active treatment was going. She’d tell me about her life experiences. She was a neat woman who had had a very rich and adventurous life. I liked learning about her and the life she had lived. And then she was diagnosed a year ago, and then nine months later it was over. There was snow on the ground again when she died.

Not knowing the details, all I can hope for is that she had a peaceful death. I haven’t had a near death experience so I don’t have any insight around what that journey could possibly be like. The only remotely close event in my life that I can touch on was a moment when my daughter was about 6 months old. We were co-sleeping. She awakened in the night. I nurse her back to sleep. I roll on to my back. I’m lying there, drifting, my eyes closed…sound ceases, my breath stills, I’m traveling through stars. At first I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how long I’ve been traveling or when I will stop. Then it reveals itself. That this pacific journey is one that I’ll take again. That this is what it is to die. This is the ascension. The traverse. Through silence. Through stars to a place beyond the known.

My work with people who are dying never gets easier. It just gets different with each new client who is making the most difficult passage of their lives. The final one. What I have observed within myself is that with each death I get more present to how I respond to their dying. I drop in deeper. I allow myself the space to cry and sit in the sadness of their loss. I often get asked by people, ” how can do you this work? how to you handle it?” The truth is that I can’t not do it. I am compelled to witness. I am compelled to lay hands. I am compelled to be a part of someone’s crossing, in whatever small way I can be. And that for me is enough of an answer.