Dear Jessica Brennan,
When your grandma, my mum, was dying a little over a year ago, I spent a lot of time sitting. Sitting by her bedside, quietly listening to her breathe, occasionally putting a straw to her lips but mostly sitting in the dark in complete silence. When grandpa was declining this year it was the same. He went much quicker than grandma but again, sitting as he mourned his wife, sitting as he became ill, sitting as he went from fairly lucid to quite confused. Sitting.
I was reminded of this again recently as grandpa and grandma’s little cat – the much loved Miss Bibs we inherited – was dying. I found myself on the floor cross legged next to her bed; just sitting.
This can be very difficult for those of us who like to fix things. Our minds want to blame someone or find a way to end the suffering as quickly as possible. Our brains are screaming, “Get me out of here!”
I was once this way, but in the last 24 months I have changed completely. One of the teachings of sorrow.
I have decided that sitting in silence may be a considerable gesture of love, and not just when someone is dying. It is a gift, a prayer and a meditation all rolled into one act. There is an exchange that occurs as though your tank is replenishing the empty vessel of the one who is in need. It is always exhausting, but is a respectful discipline wrapped in reverence. You must tell yourself, “Don’t flee, stay. Become one with this person. Be the part of them that they cannot be in this moment.”
Sitting quietly in the midst of sadness is a communion with the wounded. Abandoning all the things in life that require your undivided and immediate attention and simply sitting is agonizingly edifying.
This is a sacred offering of kindness to the universe. Sitting as someone suffers, sitting as they cry, sitting as they sleep. Just being the one who will be present with them when it is hard, and when it really counts and helping them hold the burden of their pain.
And the only meditation more powerful than this may be to learn to sit with yourself in the same kinds of circumstances. No running. No medicating with substances. Just sitting and feeling. No judgement, no solution, no opinion, no relief. Just sitting.
Love,
Mum xo
