WHY THIS WORK IS CLOSE TO MY HEART
The
deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from
the feeling that there is in every individual something which is
inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and
irretrievably lost.
~Arthur Schopenhauer
I want to
share with you something of why this work is so close to my heart. So
although no words can ever adequately describe the significance of the
losses in my life, I will try to tell you about them.
My younger
sister Lois died when she was 39 of thyroid cancer. She left behind a
husband and an 11-year old daughter. She and I were close in age and
were like twins. No one else understood me so well or was so much like
me, and she remembered much more from our childhood than I did, so
losing her also meant losing many memories. For a long time after she
died I felt like I had one foot on the other side, looking back at life completely puzzled about
what everyone was doing, and why they were bothering to do any of it.
Nothing made sense anymore.
I think Lois’s death was such a
profound shock because I wasn’t only losing the person closest to me,
it was also my first real confrontation with the reality and finality
of death. Her young age and my identification with her brought my own
mortality home to me. In many ways this was one of the gifts hidden in
the grief, because it woke me up to living my life more consciously,
with more clarity about what is really important to me. One year later
I gave birth to a daughter and named her Sarah Lois, to honor her aunt
and my sister.
Since Lois’s death, I have lost several friends
to cancer, including one very close friend who was like a sister. Rexie
was someone I could call any time, day or night, and I talked to her
nearly every day, just sharing our lives. We often said to each other,
“What would I do without you?” And now of course, I have to do without
her.
And then in January of 2008 my older sister Jeanie died of
liposarcoma, which had metastasized everywhere unexpectedly. Jeanie was
always going to be there; she was there when I was born and it never
occurred to me that she might die young. She was 57. She was a kind and
a wonderful big sister, full of good advice, and she loved to talk. I
enjoyed hearing every detail of her life, and she didn’t hesitate to
tell it all! Growing up, she always wanted most to be a good mom, and
she did a beautiful job creating a family who loves to spend time
together. Along with her husband and three grown children, she leaves
behind 4 little grandchildren, the joys of her life.
Most
recently, my last remaining sister Martha, the oldest of the four of
us, died of leukemia at age 60 in August of 2009. Martha had put up
an amazing fight over 5 years, and had at one point been told she was
free of leukemia, due to a stem cell transplant donated by my sister
Jean before she herself was diagnosed. Martha
and I had become closer than ever in the last year and a half of her
life, and I admired her enormously for her attitude towards the
suffering she was enduring. Her
death hit me very hard. I was not prepared for the shock of having all
of them gone, and being the only survivor from my childhood.
I
recently counted 14 significant people in my life who have died. Like
everyone, I have had many other kinds of losses, some just as
significant as a death, that have left me bereft. In recent years
I’ve experienced the loss of two communities, each of which has left a
huge hole in my heart.
After the death of my sister Lois, I
began working as a Bereavement Counselor for a local Hospice, where I
counseled children, teenagers and adults both individually and in
groups. Over the years I have continued my interest in recovery from
loss and grief, and wrote my doctoral dissertation about a high school
girl I counseled whose boyfriend had committed suicide. In my personal
life, I have supported many close friends who have had losses of all
kinds, including the death of a spouse.
Dealing with loss
seems to be a theme in my life, and so I have chosen to allow my
experience to benefit more people through my work as a Life Coach. If I
can be of help to you in any way, it would be an honor.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
love leaves a memory no one can steal
~From a headstone in Ireland
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