Psalms of My Soul © Joy Krauthammer
Kabbalistic Sephirat HaOmer ספירת העומר
CHESED sh b'NETZACH - day 22 Caring and LOVING KINDNESS WITHIN FINAL JOURNEYas Soul Leaves Body
Counting Omer 3 weeks and 1 day of 7 weeks
Lone Purple Lupine Living & Enduring in the Crack of Life
Soul Leaves Body
Doing it Alone, and with love
© Joy Krauthammer
Edith taught me to properly pronounce name of this flower, sounds like LUpin, not LUpine.
Edith Endured her final days in the crack of life
with L O V E.
Soul Leaves Body
© Joy Krauthammer
Purple Lupine Living & Enduring in the Crack of Life
Soul Leaves Body
and with love
Chesed sh b'Netzach
© Joy Krauthammer
Psalms of My
Soul © Joy Krauthammer
Kabbalistic
Sephirat HaOmer ספירת העומר
CHESED sh
b'NETZACH - day 22
Caring and Loving Kindness Within the Final Journey
Counting
Omer 3 weeks and 1 day of 7 weeks
A Step to
Personal Refinement in 49 Days
How can I
refine my Chesed and Netzach, my endurance to be of better loving service?
From what
or where does my endurance come?
During this Omer
day 22, Chesed sh b’Netzach, Loving Kindness Within Endurance, I am
registered for "Healing Hand", a half day workshop in being present
for the dying... as if I don’t have enough experience in this topic of
life. But I feel that I need more guidance, wisdom so that I can be a better
more understanding friend, present for the dying. In less than the last
couple years, I lost about 17 beloved friends, including cousins, one at a
time, including an older sister months ago, z"l. Lost more loved ones
in the preceding years.
Two weeks
ago it was sad to be with a dying dear friend, Edith, obm. Loving family was
always in and out of the room to be with their mother, my friend on hospice in
a hospital bed in her own home filled with love. I felt the need to honor
friend’s family, and to give them their time without my excess presence.
They all
said I was the “best friend”. Edith was my best friend.
I wish I
could have had a meaningful conversation at the end, and been supportive more
to my friend. The truth is that I’ve been supportive to her for many years,
just as she was mutually supportive and loving to me. Could I have
caringly in kindness said anything that could have helped my friend in her
final journey on earth? Had the topic of DEATH been opened for
discussion, it may have been possible.
How do I
step out of the ‘fear’ of not wanting to be inappropriate, OR how to go
forward in Netzach in opening up with Chesed / compassion
to addressing the sensitive issue not yet spoken about– the
conversation/discussion with a loved one about 'hospice, end of
life, death', without thinking I am trespassing on an intimate
personal, important reality topic, and thus not saying anything, not creating
an opening. (With a dead person, I can easily have the monologue.)
I did NOT
know that Edith was on Hospice upon coming home from hospital with pacemaker.
Prior to my friend being on 'palliative care' and morphine and no longer responsive,
I did not know that this was the end of her life journey. We also had never
touched upon the topic of 'end of life', nor death. (Couple years earlier I
offered to friends a workshop, "Valley Death Cafe". Goal was to have
a discussion on 'end of life'. I scheduled this when a friend died after months
on hospice and I had daily visited.)
The week
before Edith's death, a music therapist was visiting and dear Edith asked me to
come by for the appointment. The gentle soft-spoken therapist surprised me when
at my request, he introduced himself to me as being from a "hospice".
He asked me about the friendship and "love shared" and I expressed
out loud some of the ways Edith and I had connected, and how grateful I was for
the love. I had no idea at the time that this would be the last of our
discussions or friendly visits. Edith speaking became too difficult along with
breathing.
Sometimes
friends have been on hospice for many extended months. I followed the visiting
hospice music therapist out to his car when I too was leaving, and asked him, "Why
hospice?" Of course he legally couldn't tell me. I didn't ask in
the moment in the room then, "Why?" I didn't ask my friend. (I was
silently upset with the hospice music therapist because two weeks earlier my
friend said that she had requested two spiritual songs for the next visit, and
therapist on this last visit was not prepared.)
Until a
couple weeks earlier when lungs then weakened, my friend was so much stronger
and alert with the 'pacemaker' she was given two months earlier.
My reality
is that I am in mourning again, with a loss of a best friend. I'm feeling that
maybe there was more I could have verbally been for Edith, while holding
a hand, gently stroking her arm and forehead, and kissing good bye, saying
"I love you".
Family,
caregivers and nurses were in and out of the room for the last few days. Could
I have spoken with Edith, obm, about the transition she was in? Could I
have said anything to ease her journey in releasing her body? I did silently
speak to her soul about her loved ones who had died. Could I have said
anything comforting to Edith about her eternal soul?
Thus, this
Sephirat HaOmer Day 22 represents for me my Chesed, my Loving kindness and
compassion in determination to be present at the end of life for my dear
friends. How can I be better to help contribute wholeheartedly to loved ones
in the face of death? To help ease the journey of their soul.
Couple
decades ago I studied with a group called Compassion in Action, AKA the
Twilight Brigade. The weeks of driving into LA were to learn to be
present for the dying. Between that and all too many of my experiences with
loved ones dying and supporting their caregivers with Bikur Cholim
/ visiting the sick, I still feel to be ‘not enough’ and yet, I know this
journey is not about me. I have learned to walk into the hospice room empty,
without a plan, and just be present. That can be in silence.
In the last
days of my friend Edith’s, obm life, she could not speak, she was in a morphine
comatose state, so there was no conversation. But that did not stop me
from telling my friend what she already knew, that I love her, and so did my
family. I put my cell phone to her ear so she could hear my daughter’s voice
sharing love. I know Edith's soul heard my daughter, and me, and my soul is
feeling it deeply as I write.
My Reb Zalman,
z"l, had taught us, his students, that after death we can still have
conversations with our loved ones (while 'holding their hand' by holding our
own hand). We can ask about "Forgiveness, Gratitude, Compassion and
Love". I've even created a MEMORY FLAME card with that advice to give
comfort to mourners, and I've given away hundreds. I need to remember
that while loved one is still alive, we can open the gates of conversation on
"Forgiveness, Gratitude, Compasson and Love", as my card says.
During day
22, today, it is the memorial for my friend Edith (minutes following the
'Healing Hand" workshop'), and I will be sharing many hugs with Edith's
large family, for the last time. They do know I loved their mom. With
hugs, I have written a few loving notes to her family in the days following
death, extolling virtues of our friendship and experiences.
When I see
single flowers growing in cracks in cement, I see the perseverance needed to
live. In the flower breaking through, I see the soul separating from the body.
My 95 year old friend knew her time had come. She had out-lived all her peers,
she told me years ago. I would have liked to somehow be more supportive to
Edith (and others) at end-of-life, more than I was, but maybe I was present for
her with nothing left unsaid nor undone. I realize now that I was very
present the prior year when a dear friend was preparing to die but this 86 year
old friend continually herself brought up the topic maybe because she had no
family.
I’m going to
the 'Jewish Wisdom and Wellness" workshop in a few minutes, just in case
there is anything I can learn and be conscious and wise about, when in Chesed I
say goodbye to my loved ones. I wonder, did any of Edith’s family speak to her
about death, her death. Or were these words unspoken? LOVE was shared.
- Joy
Krauthammer
P.S.
In the Kalsman Institute with Cedars-Sinai hospital's "Healing Hand" workshop (with Sue Knight Deutsch) that I attended in morning before friend's afternoon memorial, I was reminded while visiting the dying:
–To walk in empty, and to breathe "out, and in", like blowing up and deflating a balloon.
–To listen.
–To also share that the person's "life had meaning". (My sister, z"l, and I had really discussed that when she was not well and I shared with her so many of her contributions to making the world a better place. I also reminded my family so they too could reiterate meaningful facts.)
–To ask for permission to touch the person. (I do this also when blesSing another.)
–To be on their right side facing you, if possible.
–Not to touch the crown of the head because the soul exits from the crown. (I know not to be by the head because angels visit by the head.)
–Give permission to the person for them to "let go" (of their earthly body).
~ ~ ~
The afternoon MEMORIAL for Edith was absolutely loving and attended by all extended family.
We sat in Edith's garden that she dearly loved.
© Joy Krauthammer
Screen shot of a PhotoBooth Selfie, shared with Edith's 90th birthday movie, story of her life.
Screen shot from birthday movie of Edith and Joy, loving friends
Sharing Love LINKS TO EDITH:
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