LEE KLINGER LESSER
Journeying with Charlotte through her Dying
Continued...
Like the Tides...
About two months before her death, Charlotte was in bed with many of us gathered around her. She woke up and seemed very, very far away….somehow as though she was closer to the death side on her circling spiral. She began saying a few sentences at a time in German. She would make a comment in a slow, careful way. After a few minutes she would make another comment….it was as though she was realizing and incorporating the truth of what she was saying...as though she was feeling how to trust the truth of what she was saying:
wir koennen uns ja ganz getrost der flut ueberlassen.
We can safely surrender to the tide.
die flut ist ja ganz von selbst aktiv - man braucht nichts zu tun - alles kommt von selbst.
The tide comes naturally - there's nothing to do - everything happens by itself.
die flut ist so maechtig, so selbsttaetig.
The tide is mighty and happens naturally.
To me this was another important passage in Charlotte’s journey. It stayed with me strongly: seeing the power, naturalness and ongoing movement of the tides and feeling how much the tides have to teach us about dying and about letting go. Charlotte spent so much time living by the edge of the ocean in many parts of the world: Muir Beach, Monhegan Island, Maine; Barra de Navidad, Mexico and she had led so many of us to these places and other places on the edge of living...
Saying Goodbye
With the loving help of Zen Center and Zen Center hospice, we learned how to take care of Charlotte’s body and create a space to be with her after she died. Peter dressed her in a cotton royal blue dress. I combed her hair. Green Gulch Farm Zen Center brought up buckets and buckets and buckets of flowers and herbs. Christina from Green Gulch made two beautiful flower arrangements for the rooms. Charlotte loved flowers and I think she especially loved Green Gulch flowers and most especially loved the flowers from the garden that Peter had planted and cared for outside her windows on the hill above the ocean in their Muir Beach home. Peter cut a long nasturtium vine with bright orange flowers. He put it in a vase and draped it across the top of Charlotte’s bed. So there was a living flower growing above Charlotte’s head and somehow still cradling her in life.We began putting rose petals, lavender, rose geranium, lemon verbena, rosemary and sage around and over Charlotte. As people came in to visit or say goodbye, they added flowers and herbs to Charlotte. All of the doors and windows were open and the room was filled with air, love and quiet. In the midst of grief was also laughter and joy with the memories and stories of Charlotte’s living. We had 11 yartzheit candles (Jewish memorial candles that burn for 24 hours) burning throughout the room, one for each decade of Charlotte’s life. As people came they were also invited to sound the big gong that Charlotte brought back from Japan many years ago. She loved that gong and used it in many workshops, listening to the sound until it was completed. Even when she was very weak and being pushed in her wheelchair to the bathroom in her home, she would often stop on the way back from the bathroom, lift up the striker and sound the bell with delight! So we also sounded the bell throughout the 2 ½ days that she stayed in her home after her death…hoping to greet her in her new passage with the sound of the bell.