Putting Words Around the Unfolding
You are not on stage
so there is no need to
put on a face –
to pretend, fluff
or get nervous.
You are not seeking applause.
Rather than putting anything on
or assuming a role,
you do the opposite.
Before going in,
you execute a
disappearing act.
None of this is about you.
This is your job:
be a light
be a vessel
be a mirror that
reflects Love.
Healing and presence
will show up
if you can get out of the way.
Step aside.
Copyright© Cynthia Cady Stanton, 2018
You have already started your curtain call
and now we show up
with our unpunched tickets in hand.
Meeting you at this point
is like being presented with a gift
that has already been opened –
loved and appreciated for years –
and ready to be tucked away
for safe keeping.
All our hellos
have built in goodbyes to them.
The door to you opens
and begins closing
all at once.
We know this going in.
Time is short
and momentous.
It forces an instant connection
that is felt both ways.
We understand the courage it takes
for you at this point,
to drop your guard so quickly
for a bunch of strangers
who want to help.
And you do.
And we do.
In a way, it is kind of magical.
The delicate intimacy
that comes with sharing your ending
teaches us.
Teaches you to let go
in a meaningful way,
and teaches us what
letting go looks like.
We love this about
being with you.
Thank you for allowing us
to cut in
and share your final dance.
We promise to help you
finish it well.
Please take the lead
and show us your steps.
We will follow you
and share your curtain call.
Copyright© Cynthia Cady Stanton, 2018
It takes all of us
to bring you home;
to follow your lead
while you demonstrate what you need –
how we can help.
Sometimes you don’t know.
After all,
this is a first for you.
We understand.
So we show you the way.
At first,
it is all about the pain
in all its potential forms
and impact.
Then it is
all about the Love –
given and received
over a lifetime
and in this moment.
We help unwrap
how Love endures
through it all.
We have travelled this road
with so many.
But no one is
exactly like you.
We are here.
Right next to you.
Each of us tasked
with a different
aspect of you –
the whole picture of you
and the life you were given.
As witnesses to your
soul’s journey,
we catch merely a glimpse
of the mystery
ahead
that calls to us all.
Thank you for that.
The comfort flows both ways.
We will never forget you.
Copyright © Cynthia Cady Stanton, 2017
“I don’t think you can see it,”
said my love one day
during one of our connecting moments
when he gently dared
to pull away my self-imposed blinders.
“You are too close to it.”
He may be right.
Maybe I don’t see it,
this reality that few get to be in.
I work in a strange land,
a land of life
and a land of death.
The terrain is sometimes rocky and treacherous,
sometimes peaceful,
always momentous.
Every day I am in the midst
of the end
and the beginning,
all wrapped up in the movement of breath
and the wrenching of hearts.
I get to witness this,
over and over.
And my love does not see
how I can do this.
I breathe rare air.
It is the air of final breaths,
filled with spaces, longing, regrets,
love and letting go.
On a daily basis,
I am next to bodies as they sputter to a stop.
I take in the worn faces and the withered forms
barely taking up space.
I breathe this rare air.
The air of souls bursting to be free.
I hear the sounds
and smell the smells.
I breathe rare air.
You may wonder what this does to me,
this rarified experience.
I wonder, too.
Is this death I witness contagious?
Will my disappearing act be hastened
because I am seemingly comfortable
in this strange land?
I think not.
If anything,
entering this territory on a daily basis
is an invitation.
A chance to truly see.
With eyes wide open to what lies ahead,
there is no pretending.
No glossing over or dodging the truth.
I will end one day,
or, at least my body will.
There is no covering this over
with any effort to avert it,
whether it is in being as healthy as I can be,
or in avoiding what needs attending
before it is too late.
No.
Working with the dying
and breathing this rare air,
has opened me up in ways
beyond my comprehension.
I am being changed.
How could I not be?
All I know now
is that with each inhale of this experience,
my tightly bound heart
unwraps a little more.
I am softening.
And here is the nub of it:
I am getting a head start
on letting go
of all that does not matter.
I am being schooled in death bed academics
and I intend to be a straight A student.
So, maybe working with the dying
and breathing this rare air
IS contagious
because in learning to let go now,
and do the work before me,
my death can be more beautiful
when my time comes,
and my loved ones
more at peace.
Copyright@2017 Cynthia Cady Stanton
Becoming and Beholding 