The healing power of death
That sounds something of an outrageous claim. Modern medicine, which seeks to preserve life, seems to view death as the ultimate failure. Yet death is the inevitable consequence of being alive and I think that in the dying process- if we are fortunate enough to have a dying process- and in its aftermath, there is potential for healing.
When I was training as a homoeopath 30 years ago, I read a book called ‘The Healing Power of Illness’ by Dalke and Dethlefsen, which radically changed my outlook on health. I no longer saw symptoms as the problem but as the ill person’s response to the problem. In my understanding, illness became not the enemy to be opposed but the voice of an overwhelmed system to be attended to.
The diagnosis
It is late January, my husband and I are sitting at the table after lunch. He is telling me his right arm has been losing feeling for weeks, and his right leg. As I look at him, his eyes seem wrong. I call 111. They think he is having a stroke. An ambulance arrives, he starts to twitch and they knock him out with diazepam. We are blue lighted to the hospital 20 miles away. Many hours and a CT scan later, the A&E doctor tells me,
“There is a swelling in his brain consistent with the presence of a brain tumour”. Still unconscious, he is moved to a ward and I leave. In the lift I slide down the wall.
“You have to hold me now!” I cry internally to the God of my understanding.
The next afternoon, my husband is weeping when I arrive.
“Do you know?” he says.
“Yes”.
“I know what this is.” No hesitation. Perhaps it is more complex, there may be genetics, environmental factors, personal history and more involved, I can’t say, but he knew the stress which he had been carrying, that he had been hiding something about which he was so deeply ashamed he felt mortified.
The healing
The healing began. When he came home he unburdened himself to me, let me hear the mess of addiction and debt he had gotten himself into, all of it the direct result of childhood responses to trauma. They had begun a vicious cycle which was holding him fast and keeping him in a place which he thought put him beyond forgiveness. I didn’t do anything, just continued to love him and gradually, there dawned a knowledge in him that he was loveable, forgivable, and even, maybe, there was nothing to forgive. The things he had done were symptoms of his suffering. He had an operation to remove as much of the tumour as possible and awoke from the anaesthetic, feeling in a state of grace. As his self-respect returned he took practical steps to regain order in his life. He wanted to live.
But not all illness is survivable and as it happens, his was not. As the healing progressed, so too did the size of his tumour. He had in place an Advance Directive to Refuse Treatment, which stated his right and intention to withdraw treatment when he felt the time was right. After 15 months he said,
“I’m ready”. I trusted his knowing of himself and the journey he was on. Two days after the second reduction of steroids he died. I believe that the pain of his shame had been so great, that only the presence of death at his side could have held him to his task. His death was ultimately redemptive. “But why”, I wailed in the wake of his death, “could you not have healed into life rather than death? And what about me? How am I supposed to be well without you?”
On the threshold
The other week I held a workshop for the Threshold Choir I run. If we are going to be present for others facing the threshold into death, it behoves us to face our own. Here are some extracts from my writing, as I imagined myself on my death bed.
My life has been grand, the feelings deep, melancholy as a lonely mountain lake, playful as a moorland river. Sunlight has filtered through dark forests and there have been clearings with wild flowers. I have held my children and grandchild, I have loved my man. And oh, I have loved this earth: beech tree, solid and moss covered beside the river; cosy home with fire and candles and red rugs; wild oceans and tragic mountains…
How is it to lose this life? I have not lost it, I have acquired it, accrued it, assembled it, built it, lived it, treasured and enriched it. It is not gone, it is here for all time…
Death, you have walked beside me always, companion, teacher. From the waters of my mother to this bed I lie on, there you have been teaching me to feel, to value, to love, to appreciate. Feel feel feel. This is my human life. Feel it all..
Love
I did not know how deeply, colourfully and sensually, I loved my life. In the gloom of this last winter and the aching loneliness of my nights, I have continued to hurt and yet the hurt does not preclude love. A friend said to me the other day,
“I hate that you’ve had so much pain”. I thought about it. I don’t hate that. The pain has been a measure of my love and I cannot, for all I would wish to still have my beloveds with me, wish it away. I don’t like hurting, but I accept it as the consequence of love (on a good day!) And I accept, that grief has been my teacher, a potter who has broken an old pot and rebuilt it with a bigger capacity for compassion and understanding.
Some deaths are sudden or even violent but many of us have warning that death is on its way and in this case I do think there is opportunity. For myself, what I know now is, that not only did my husband heal into his death, in the wake of his death, grief is healing my life. The common denominator for us both, is the love we found together, beyond I think a personal love, more an uncompromising, unwavering and often mysterious Love in which we trusted, not until death did us part, but into and beyond it.
With my love
Nickie
PS This is blog number 50!! Thank you to all of you who read it – sometimes, most times and even every time! My hope and my dream is that what I share touches you, supports and encourages you, and that perhaps it can ripple out into the world and touch others too. Please share this blog as freely as you would like to.
An apology
To those of you who tried to follow the link I sent last time, to Tania Kindersley’s blog speaking of the heart break of shocking grief, I am sorry: the link didn’t work. I hope this one works better for those of you who would like to read her piece.
NEWS
Review Time
Blog number 50, 1 year since I set up a community interest company, 2 years since I built this website. Time to review: what’s working, what isn’t and where do I want to take this venture (or where is it asking to take me?)
Love of writing- certainly and it’s growing.
Ideas in abundance – never yet run out.
The ability to deliver 1:1 and group support to those who are dying and grieving and do it well: tick.
The gap is in getting my name and what I do out there and then selling and funding my work. More on this another time but for now what I want to say is: PLEASE INVITE ME.
Invite me to run events for your group: day events or courses, in person or online.
You gather the group and provide the venue (if applicable) and pay me as the facilitator. Any profit is yours. I work with many different people including individuals, businesses, organisations, special interest and friendship groups. Here’s what I do:
Creative writing - poetry, haiku, prose, fiction, non-fiction
Nature as guide, creativity as vehicle.
Curriculum for grief - shedding light on the territory and process of grief
Singing from our souls.
Rituals -including major life events and seasonal
Creating your own funeral.
Sharing circles
Supervision groups for others working in the field of dying or grieving.
Although a lot of my work these days, especially group work, is geared towards those who are dying or grieving, it is not limited to that. I also work with women who are eldering, business people who are wearying and anyone looking for deeper meaning in their lives. Sometimes I work alone and sometimes in collaboration with another. If you are interested in working with me, please let me know.
PLEASE BE IN TOUCH. Emaile or write to me on instagram with a note of interest and we can have a conversation. And if I might ask you who already know and have some appreciation of what I do, please share my request.
Walking with Loss
Give yourself the gift of space, a time to breathe out, a time to be with those or that which you have lost and to honour them. Join Emma and I for a beautiful mix of sharing with others and time spent alone in nature.
For more information and to book, please go to the events page here. If you’d like to talk to me, please email the address on the poster opposite.
Others’ News
If you live in South Devon, two events for you.
HANDLING GRIEF
A series of workshops in Totnes, using clay as a medium for exploring and expressing grief. Wednesday mornings 5th, 12th and 19th March at the Mansion, Totnes.
For more information email Loss & Life here
DYING CONVERSATIONS
Monthly conversations in Buckfastleigh facilitated and supported by Simon Smith, Director and founder of Heart& Soul Funerals. Last Thursday of the month at the MIC centre Buckfastleigh.
For more information email Simon here
Buy Me A Coffee
I am very very grateful to the many of you who have been gifting me coffees. Over these last months I have been given enough to pay for my domain and website renewal for the year, with some left over. This means that the blog has become self funding and that feels wonderful. Thank you.
For those of you who would like to contribute regularly or every now and again, please know that every cup of coffee (£5) matters to me and I appreciate each one. You can do so here if you would like to at any time.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THESE BLOGS FOR FREE, PLEASE CLICK ON THE SUBSCRIBE BUTTON. YOU WILL RECEIVE EMAILS EVERY FORTNIGHT VIA SUBSTACK WHICH IS THE PLATFORM I USE. IF YOUR BLOG DOES NOT ARRIVE PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. THANK YOU.
CONTACT: PLEASE DO NOT USE THE CONTACT FORM ON THIS WEBSITE AS IT IS CURRENTLY BROKEN. As an alternative, go to my instagram (see below) or email me on the address ont he poster above.