Martha Reflects

So many deaths I have been a part of, so many patients, families, caregivers, and volunteers have touched my life. Together we’ve created a kind of peaceful revolution whose battle cry is as quiet and profound as two strangers holding hands before death. We’ve gone to the edge of our fear of death, of our curiosity, of our longing to befriend it, and have it teach us. We have discovered that dying is deeply disturbing, painful, sad; and that it is the mysterious source of all radiance.   

We are, some might say, a ghoulish gang. We have found suffering more interesting than happiness. Buddha encourages us,  "of all the mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme".

We have meditated together, motionless in the midst of a hundred dyings, and have found there the one who is nameless, the source of the tireless compassion. In helping others, we have forgotten who we are.

Hospice is not some philosophical nicety; it is your being at the bedside moment by moment, week by week, year after year. It is your willingness to keep signing up for a sangha totally committed to melting the sharp edges of sorrow, separation, and pain. Quite a place to call home.