It started with this message: “I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.” From there grew Offerings’ first-ever blog cluster of heartfelt sharings called “Stumbling into Grace”. In reading them, may you be graced.

I have read your blog (“The Veil is Slipping…Papa, Can I See You?” and can really empathize with the experience you are living.

As you know, Guy was a scientist, first educated as a clinical psychologist and then as an engineer. As a warm introvert, he had a gentle and yet strong presence at all times.  As his illness progressed and his care was moved in to hospice services, I remember how he responded to the young doctor and social worker who came to interview us.

When asked if he had a church preference, he replied that, while having been brought up as an Episcopalian, he had left organized religion and over many years had practised ‘zen sitting’.  In the way of sacred synchronicity which was part of our acknowledged and shared way of noting reality, the young medic replied that he understood as he, himself, was a zen practitioner.  Then the young man asked him how he was approaching this experience, and that was the moment when Guy said that ‘he had received the most exciting and compelling invitation to walk in awe and wonder in to the mystery.’

When the hospice team left, Guy and I had a conversation and knew that we must have a conference with our daughters and immediately invited them to come. When we were together, Guy repeated to us the answer he had given.  He then asked us if we could support him, and I remember he said that hospice talks of six months and no doubt they could arrange more and more palliative ‘cocktails’ but knew this meant he would get up each morning and recognize himself less and less as he looked in to the mirror.   He then, again, asked us if we could support him if he continued ‘to walk in awe and wonder in to the mystery?’. I am sure we were unclear at one level as to what that meant, but, at the deep level of our collective meaning-making, we all knew that we wished to supportively accompany him.

Upon reflection, I know that I was with Guy as he became more feeble each morning he got up to wash and shave and look at himself in the mirror.  In about a month, Guy quietly said to me that we would need a nurse in the morning and I called the hospice nurse.   The next morning she examined Guy, came out and  said, “this gentleman has decided to leave today and children should be called to be with us.” I asked her to speak to our daughters Catherine and Barbara and they came within two hours.

Guy asked Catherine to sit on the bed and play to him her latest composition for the classical guitar: “The Family Dialogue”. He had asked her to write up the notated score and she brought it with her.  Gradually, as time went by, Guy’s ‘zen breathing’ took over and later in the afternoon he breathed his last deep breath.

We learned that one could decide to face that last step in to the mystery with awe and wonder, and realized that Guy had almost always approached his life in that way.  We learned that it is good to have a pattern of family dialogue that has been practised and can be called on as one’s loved ones take steps in to the mystery at any time in life and especially towards the end of the physical life as we know it.

We learned that calling this time in to conscious ceremony is important. When the nurse asked me to call my children, I also had a clan pipe-carrying sister with me and the sisters of my clan – the Fireweed Clan- were all called.   As a result, a sister was beating the heart beat of the earth drum quietly during those last hours of shared physical life. The house was cleansed with the smudging of smoke.   After Guy’s last breath, he was enfolded in a clan blanket and candles lit for a twenty four hour family time together.  We all recognize life itself as ceremony, and recognize that life itself is a profound gift of ceremony.

That evening, the Fireweed Clan gathered and a full pipe ceremony of thanksgiving for Guy’s life was held in the sitting room;  one Canadian sister spent the night with the above sky-and-star nations in order to ensure clear passage in to the greater mystery.

I hope, dear Teresa, that you know that this shared story comes to you with deep love.