{"id":726,"date":"2014-09-16T15:35:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T22:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nancymthurston.wordpress.com\/?p=726"},"modified":"2014-09-16T15:35:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T22:35:30","slug":"let-your-heart-break-4-living-while-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/16\/let-your-heart-break-4-living-while-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Your Heart Break #4: Living While Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ed<\/a>
Ed and Paul, 2001<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What can Dad\u2019s walk toward death teach us about living?<\/p>\n

Thirteen years ago, as Dad lay dying, I watched the otters play in Monterey Bay and monarch butterflies fly around the bushes just outside his living room window.<\/p>\n

Leaving my brother and the Hospice workers with Dad, I walked along the shore to the neighborhood coffee shop in the early morning hours of Monday, October 1, 2001. While waiting for my latte, I noticed a brochure for Reiki treatments by Wendy Cohen. I\u2019d undergone this Japanese treatment before when a practitioner laid her hands over my body and filled me with renewed life force. I had found it more energetically powerful than a massage, and it felt like intercessory prayer. I wanted a Reiki session for Dad to ease his death process and for me as I supported his journey to and following death.<\/p>\n

I immediately called Wendy. She was busy that morning but promised to check back in a few hours.<\/p>\n

Wendy called mid-afternoon to say she was coming. By that time Dad was actively dying.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want me to come anyway?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

I did.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, in walked a stranger dressed in a mini skirt and Harley Davidson jacket, holding a bright red basket filled with little bottles of flower vibrational essences. Wendy silently took her place among the small group that circled Dad\u2019s bed.<\/p>\n

As soon as Wendy\u2019s hands hovered over Dad\u2019s feet, my hands touching his face felt his energy soften. His breathing slowed, and my heart melted. Two minutes later, his spirit gently slipped out of his body. His final letting go.<\/p>\n

When family gathered for Dad\u2019s funeral a week later, his casket lay in St. Mary\u2019s by the Sea Episcopal Church, a church he\u2019d attended only for funerals and weddings. Draped over his coffin was a cloth of bright red, orange and green\u2014the tablecloth Mom had completed for our Christmas, days before she died.<\/p>\n

I touched his coffin on my way to the pulpit to preach his funeral sermon.<\/p>\n

As ended my sermon, I said, \u201cDad died in the living room of his home, where Mom died fifteen years ago. This tired old body he left behind is here in the same church<\/p>\n

where Mom\u2019s funeral was held and is now covered by the same cloth that covered her casket. And our family will again use the tablecloth to cover the family table when we gather to feast together knowing that we are encircled with the spirit of Ed and Sue. … God, \u2018give to us now your grace, that as we shrink before the mystery of death, we may see the light of eternity.\u2019 \u201d *<\/p>\n

On September 11, 2001, Dad began his three-week walk toward death. Simultaneously, hijacked planes crashed into buildings that epitomized US economic, military and governmental power.<\/p>\n

For a moment Americans came together in grief, but within days we shifted to talk of war and patriotic pride. As a result, thousands more have died in our unwinnable battles. In contrast, Dad responded with an open heart and lived even as he died.<\/p>\n

Though Dad was an in-control man for most of his life, his heart had softened fifteen years earlier after Mom died. We\u2019d grieved together, cried together and talked about her often. But my heart broke open even more as I watched Dad let go into his death. He taught me many things about life while dying.<\/p>\n