Love Letter To The Dying

As you lie dying Maddie,

I am far away. My heart is yearning to be near. To bring comfort to be comforted.

I lie awake at night thinking, you are safe, at ease with all, and feeling loved.

This prayer shall continue.

Never have I met such a loving, caring, giving, and compassionate soul. We met only 1 ½ years ago in a passionate plea to support your mother-in-law on her journey at the end of life. You compassionately grappled with her struggle to reconcile life and death. You were selfless in your every action whether it was to bring her chocolate pudding, hire support, manage her care, catalog her belongings or attempt to appease and calm her family. You wholeheartedly supported your husband as he also navigated the family business, legacy, press, and resources. Some may say you martyred yourself. I would say you loved all of you. I fell in love with your being almost from the first moment we met at the nail salon. We laughed often at how we met. You came to get your nails and toes pretty and you left with a death doula in your pocket ready to serve you and your family.

Some say you should never fall in love with your clients. I say I cannot not fall in love with my clients. Love is the liquid gold that helps us make sense of the senseless and cope with life and death. Brings meaning to this existence. Oh my, how you brought meaning to so many lives!

How much you touched my life!  Working with you to support Joan was a huge process of patience, love, support, honoring, and presence. Joan wrestled with her existence and her life. She prayed for her death that we all were grateful had arrived gracefully.  She was a woman with few expressions of conventional love but showed her love through fierce advocacy and activism. The world is a better place from her actions. You my deer showed your love in each breath you took. The world has lost a huge source of love and light. A love and light that is needed so desperately now.

When you died. I wept. First for you, as I know how much you wanted to live and how worried you were for your boys. Your precious boys. Then, I wept! I feared that I had let you down. Three months ago, you called me to your door and said, “I know now why we met. It was not to help my mother-in-law die, it was to hold me in my process. Your presence brings me comfort, you shared with heartfelt passion”. I felt you were asking me to hold you. I held you every day…even though I was far.  I pray you felt comforted. I pray you know how much you are loved. I pray you know you matter then and now. Covid kept so many of us apart. I witnessed you, even through your pain,  focus your love and passion into loving your family. You served tirelessly and you made life a better place for all you touched. Thank you for your undying support to The HeartWay. You will be a legacy of love for us. I pray we can serve as graciously as you did.  You are so courageous. Courage is not just facing your fears, it is facing your truth.

You were living life to your fullest and taking so many with you.

My heart is just broken!

Time and tears will help me find my breath again. I don't want to get it back too quickly. I wish to deepen your exquisite love, support, and cheer. You were already such a big cheerleader for The HeartWay. Stepping into the role of Advisory Board Member plotting to share our services and find necessary funding so we can help support families at the end of life.  Thank you for your undying support to The HeartWay. You will be a legacy of love for us. You will remain my shining star. When I get discouraged, as I do from time to time, your bouncy, loving, cheery, and passionate voice will ring in my ears and heart.

“You go girl. I believe in you”.

Well, you go girl, I believe in you.

Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for the privilege of serving you and your family. I promise to stay near for your boys to be of support if and when they might need. They also have you inside of them that will inspire their life. They love you beyond any words we could muster up.

I love and cherish you. I know these words to be true as I write to you thru my tears of truth.

Your Dr. Deerheart

P.S. please stay near, I will look for you in the wind, the sea, the sky and the clouds.