Who will be with me in the end?

The air feels thick and gritty, it smells warm and old and all I can see is myself, A warm air runs over my body and through my hair mixing with a sense of lucidity. I am not really that old but I can’t tell anymore what is old and what is young. The blanket is draping over my lower half and the tubes for oxygen are barely gripping my nose. All I can see is my body, the rest of the room is foggy like summer in San Francisco the way the fog hangs over the bay.

I am confused and agitated and my body feels numb.

Visions like this make me wonder, Who will be with me in the end?

The sense I have of myself is that I am deeply feeling woman who offered herself to others in a way that at times was difficult for people to see. I offered an honesty about myself that allowed others to see themselves, I offered myself in a way that created space for them to be them and me to be me because our setbacks were our steps forwards.

I have been the space to support others in “ how to breathe” and as I begin my last breaths I wonder “ who can sit with me”? Who can hold my hand while my mouth drapes open and the nurse drips morphine in my tongue?. Who can see my soul as it begins its journey out of my dying body, who will squeeze my hand to let me know they are still with me? And who will permit me to go tho the other side?

What am I willing to allow? Will the resistance to vulnerability still be there at my death? Or the wall that I have allowed myself to separate myself from? Will my resistance to vulnerability, still be present, or will I sink into the deep well of love that I’ve hidden, and allow them to feel me?

In this space, will I allow them to see my growing chin hairs that I have been hiding from others, my eyebrows that grow into strange tentacles that look like they belong at the bottom of the ocean? Will I finally allow someone to be with my unkempt hair and unbrushed teeth?

Will I allow them to see the deep expression of my soul that felt like a strange monster and a beautiful piece of art that lived in Musee de’ Orsay that you only get to look at but not fully touch?

Will I allow all the pieces that are a part of me to melt into a beautiful puzzle so that finally complete?

Will I allow the hurts to heal, the tears to be trails to my heart? Will I allow the touch to be an opening to what the “Otherside”, may feel like, and will I allow, both sides to become one?

I feel alone, scary and courageous and beautiful, I will allow the butterflies in my stomach to fly in formation instead of all over, I will allow them to show me the way home.

 As my breath continues in its hesitancy, my heart slows, my eyes open,  my matted hair and unbrushed teeth are outside of me and I see the lives that I have touched, the hearts that have changed, the friendships that have endured, the hurts that have healed, the desires that are unlived, the beauty found, my inhale now a little deeper into myself.

It hits me, we are always moving towards joy, towards our soul, it is not a demand that we have it now, rather it is the journey towards it that allows us to see who we truly are ….