Going naked
To journey with someone as they pass into the next life. To say goodbye. To forgive. To be thankful. To accept. Wow. This job of walking with the dying and their families in hospice is truly humbling.
I’m not quite sure what to reflect on it all yet as the newness of this work settles in. So I want to share a poem that I discovered.
Is Life the Incurable Disease
Is life the incurable disease?
The infant is born howling
& we laugh,
the dead man smiles
& we cry,
resisting the passage,
always resisting the passage,
that turns life
into eternity.Blake sange alleluias
on his deathbed.
My own grandmother,
hardly a poet at all,
smiled
as we’d never seen her smile
before.
Perhaps the dress of flesh
is no more than a familiar garment
that grows looser as one diets
on death, & perhaps we discard it
or give it to the poor in spirit,
who have not learned yet
what a blessing it is
to go naked?Erica Jong
August 09 2008 02:45 pm | Eternal Life
