On Heart Expansion
Today I said goodbye to my friend the professor. You may not t know I have a friend who is a professor. I didn’t know either until about three months ago.
You see a little over three months ago I started volunteering at a local hospice. I was sitting with my Buddhist Sangha this past winter when one of the members said that memory care hospice was looking for volunteers to connect with their patients. The Sensei recommended that we volunteer to help us become more comfortable with death and dying.
As someone whose parents received the comfort of hospice I felt volunteering could be a way to “pay it forward” for previous hospice support. Additionally I am not someone who is comfortable with death or dying so this opportunity seemed like a good fit for me. I went ahead and contacted the facility to start volunteering.
The minimum requirements to volunteer are just one hour a month, The patients in the facility are expected to be within six months of end of life. With such minimal interaction possibilities I didn’t expect to become too attached to anyone. As it turns out I spend more like two to three hours a month at the facility but that still isn’t very long to make a connection. Or is it?
My friend the professor is a former physics instructor from a local college. On our first meeting we attended a music appreciation session at the hospice facility. We listened to the music,conversed about playing music (I am a violinist), and discussed the topics of the lyrics. To say we conversed and discussed is an overstatement. One of the professor’s memory challenges is that he can’t form the words he wants to share. So I do my best to listen and fill in the blanks. He seemed grateful for my visit and I was happy to meet someone new.
During subsequent visits we walked around the grounds, listened to jazz on my phone, and my favorite activity- I read poetry to the professor. The professor seemed to enjoy hearing the poetry and after reading a poem I would talk about the topic of the poem and ask some yes and no questions so the professor could interact with me. A few weeks ago I read a poem about a little girl and her grandmother’s passing. In the poem the little girl’s mom explained that while her grandmother had passed she still lived on in the little girl’s heart. The professor and I talked about that poem for a while. The professor believed that hope and faith were valuable parts of life. I felt a strong connection to him that day.
Today I got word that the professor’s health was in decline and he may not make it past the next few days. I set out to visit him at hospice. When I arrived he was in bed, awake struggling to breathe. There was an oxygen tube in his nose. He looked very frail. In spite of his physical challenges he was still the friend I made a few months before. I talked to him, telling him about the sunny day and the branches I could see blowing outside his window. When he coughed and struggled I held his hand. I put on some soothing piano music. He fell asleep. I watched his chest rise and fall, reminding me of when my children were babies and I would watch them sleep. At that moment I thought of the Buddhist Sangha and how every meeting begins with, “Breathing in and out I am aware that I am breathing in and out. I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be”. The professor was truly in that space.
When I entered hospice that day I had only planned to stay for half and hour. But watching the professor and realizing this might be our last visit together I didn’t want to leave because I would be staying goodbye for the last time. I decided to stay for a little while longer. Knowing I was delaying the inevitable didn’t make it any easier. Now I was silently crying. Is this what it means to get comfortable with death and dying?
Finally I decided to break my departure down into steps. I took the professor’s hand and held it for a long time. I put all the compassion and well wishes I could into my hand. Then, when I felt my heart had settled I told the professor goodbye and that I hoped we would connect again someday. As I looked out the window I felt immense gratitude for the opportunity to see the sunshine and the branches that were blowing in the wind. The colors I could see all seemed brighter (perhaps this came from tear glazed eyes). My gratitude for the people and experiences in my life was enormous and humble at the same time. While my heart was sad it was also expanded farther than I can ever remember. While I didn’t want to feel the sadness I didn’t want to let go of the beautiful awareness and gratitude in my heart. Perhaps this is what it means to get comfortable with death and dying.