All Comments By Fran

Thank you for sharing this story. It brought a smile to my face and heart this morning.

First I read this twice. Then I listened twice and wept. I’m still weeping. I watched my husband die a noble death four months ago. He worked very hard, courageously, to leave his body. Within 90 minutes of his passing, his face relaxed into a beautiful smile. I carry the Smile with me now, wherever I go. It was my entry into the One. Deep gratitude to my beloved.

I have often reflected on Chogyan Trungpa's quote on groundlessness: "The bad news is you are falling through the air with no parachute. The good news: there is no ground." I may have paraphrased. I continue to care for my husband who has been in decline the last five years and is now on hospice. Here, there is no hope; only love (along with exhaustion and grief). I have no idea how much he will suffer or how his death will occur. I don't know if I'd call this curiosity but I am attentive. The generosity also resides in that attentiveness.

Most of my life (and in most every aspect of it) I've been seduced by the mirage; believing in it, wanting it and headed toward it. It was an endless affair with possibility, imagination and creativity. Then I was blindsided by the reality of my husband being diagnosed with both Alzheimer's and cancer, within a year of each other. For a few years, everything collapsed into fear and grief, even as I faced the immensity of my new assignment. It sure was the end of "the affair" and my infatuation with the mirage. I am his full time caregiver and he is my teacher; still a remarkable man with an open heart who doesn't remember he has cancer. He knows he is dying and isn't concerned about it. Within the paradigm of surrender that the pandemic has ushered in, the truth of uncertainty is a resting place.... a "timeless, eternal Now moment."