butterflies or web design

Today at work--during a long day of trying to figure out code--I reached in my purse to get some cash and found a piece of paper that Momo's Hospice chaplain gave our family last month. As I read it in my office, I wept.

I decided to post her experience here on my blog, not only to share these thoughts, but in fear that I will loose this piece of paper, and I want a digital copy for myself....

________________________

As her hospice chaplain, I have had the privilege of getting to know Mary for the past few months, and to spend time with her and her wonderful family as she lived her last days.

Mary Blethen was 84 years old when she left her human cocoon and became one of God's beautiful butterflies. She had been diagnosed with dimentia, and her confusion escalated day by day, week by week. Underneath it, though, her clarity and sense of presence grows stronger as she prepares for her own death.

It was a few weeks ago that she began the process of actively dying. Sitting by her bedside, she looked deep into my eyes and said, "I need help." A tiny tear trickled down the outside of her left eye and she added, "I don't know how to do this."

For a moment I paniced. How am I supposed to know how to help someone die gracefully, fully? Tears filled my eyes as i stared at her and held her head in my hands. I leaned forward and we both cried openly with each other. She pursed her lips to give me a kiss and I leaned in and kissed her back.

"I love you, daring," she whispered. "I love you too, Mary. You can do this," I said, the tears streaming down my face. "You are a glorious child of God."

I guided her through a breathing exercise, asking her to relax more and more with each outbreath, to surrender into the process. Something deeper than the normal way of being was at work. And so we sat together, doing our meditation. Mostly we were in silence, and I held the space of acceptance and God's grace. She held my hand and allowed me to be her guide. Of course it was actually her own process that was the guide, and i was simply there as its muse.

When I saw Mary on Friday, her eyes had begun to cloud over, and though they were open, they gazed at something beyond the world that is familiar to you and me. Her earlobes had begun to sag down (a sign that she is leaving her body) and she could barely move her limbs.

She
spoke at intervals.

"Butterflies" she said punctuating a long silence.

"It's changing.
It's different," she added, moments later.

I thought of Mary floating through the forest, a beautiful fairy with wings. I often told her that she was a fairy that came to visit us humans only to remind us of all the magic around and inside of us.

I leaned toward her and said, "Thank you, Mary, for allowing me to be here with you as you travel down this sacred path." We cried again.

Chris sat with me for a long time, with Mary. Chris has the patience of a mountain. She rests comfortable in the space of not-knowing, of not-fixing. She is truly a nurse-mystic. She, too, served as a presence that allowed Mary's process to organically unfold, fully accepted and embraced.

Thank you Mary. May you be liberated from all the suffering of this life and realize your true nature as you let you. May you fall into the lap of God, and, as the prayer you so loved says, may you "seek not to be loved, but to love." You truly are the light of God's love.

____________________

And as I sit here now, it nearing midnight and I'm still struggling to get my javascript to work in a drupal web page.... my heart hurts. Not only because I miss my soul-friend, my Momo, but realizing that I spend so much time creating, and designing, and coding ephemera.... stuff that means quite little when you look at the big picture.

Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing?? After after 25 years of being a professional creative, a pixel-slave at times, my heart longs to serve those on their last chapter... those walking down the sacred path....

(heavy sigh)