Hola mi Gente…
Today is AIDS Awareness Day. I have lost so many loved to
this disease over the years. This is dedicated to all of them because it needs
to be told and they need to be remembered...
* * *
(above:
Yemaya)
The power of love to change bodies is
legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love
moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, ‘tender loving
care’ has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.
--
Larry Dossey
[Note: names, characteristics, specifics were changed in
order to respect anonymity]
When I first started school and begn
the process that eventually led to a career as a “healer,” I went through an
experience that would forever change the way I understand healing.
Many years ago, as I was in the
process of picking up the pieces of my shattered life, I received a phone call
in the middle of the night. Marta, an old and dear friend, called to tell me
that a former lover was on her deathbed at a nearby hospital. I’ll never forget
her words, she said, “Eddie, I know you and Jasmine did a lot of fucked up shit
to each other, but she’s not expected to last the weekend. If you have anything
you want to tell her, now is the time. They’re giving her last rites as we
speak.”
I thanked my friend and as I put
down the phone in shock, I realized I didn’t know what to do. I mean, there
were so many conflicting feelings. Here was someone who had caused me great
pain, who had been the object of numerous homicidal fantasies, who now was
dying. But as I thought of her it was hard for me to feel the old resentment
and anger without a pang of conscience. After
all, I thought, I was equally cruel
to her. I decided then that I would visit her that very moment.
As I began to get dressed (it
was about 2 am), it dawned on me that I had more than one reservation. For one,
her family wasn’t too fond of me. In fact, Jasmine once admitted to me that the
joke was that they wouldn’t even mention my name, and when they did, they
whispered my last name as if actually calling my given name aloud would evoke
me. So, in essence, I was something of a persona non grata, to put it lightly.
But I resolved that I would go anyway and that if there were any objections, I
would simply apologize and leave and in that way I would know in my heart that
I attempted to make amends. People, that Serenity Prayer? Actually does come in
handy sometimes, folks!
As I rode the train to the
hospital, my mind kept coming up with various scenarios: the mother would curse
me, I would make a personal family tragedy worse, or my presence would only
magnify the pain. It was with these reservations that I finally arrived at the
hospital and, after locating her, I entered the dark room quietly. The room was
full of close friends and family members all huddled around the bed where a
wasted and frail young woman lay seemingly unconscious. No one noticed me, as I
listened to the priest murmur some prayers. Scared shitless, I waited for
someone to recognize me and, as the priest finished his ministrations, the
mother turned, noticed me, and with tears in her eyes sobbed, “Eddie! Oh Eddie,
mi hijo, lo que a llegamo!” As we embraced, she cried. I could feel a stirring
in the room, as my presence was made known.
The mother quietly explained the
situation: something had gone wrong with a treatment and her daughter had
fallen into a coma after a long bout with HIV and it was expected that she
would die soon. I tried to apologize and explain that if my being there was
inappropriate, I would leave, but the mother stopped me and led me to Jasmine’s
bed. It was hard to look at her, lying there now ravaged by disease. Her mother
spoke to her as if she could hear her and said, “Mira nena, look who’s here to
see you -- Eddie!”
Honestly, I didn’t know what the
fuck to do. I mean, what do you do in
such a situation? But something told me to take her hand. And as I touched her
hand, I bent over and whispered to her, telling her how sorry I was for the
things I did to her and how we hurt each other; that I was now living a good
life free of my destructive patterns and active addiction. I honestly didn’t
think she could hear me, and I thought it was somewhat foolish, but it also
felt right, so I kept it up. Her hands felt cold so I rubbed my hands together
to generate heat and warmed her hands. I kept this up -- talking to the
unconscious Jasmine and warming her hands, and then her face, her arms, as so
on.
When I felt I had said what I
had to say, I kissed her forehead and I began to walk away when I heard her
whisper, “Eddie?” Everyone in the room stopped talking and when I turned
around, there was Jasmine looking at me, calling my name. At that point,
everyone in the room started doing the sign of the cross and Jasmine’s mother
was praying and saying that it was miracle, and people were just running around
calling the doctors and there I was in the middle of that whole scene wondering
what the fuck was going on.
Jasmine would live for about
four more months. And I don’t mean to imply that my hands “healed” her or
anything idiotic like that. I don’t know if I had anything to do with it, but
later, Jasmine said that it wasn’t until she felt the heat from my hands that
she began to regain consciousness. Before then, she said, she felt she had
settled into a form of resignation of meeting her fate. It’s hard for me to
describe what Jasmine said, but I now think she had surrendered to death. She
had lost all hope for life, she told me, and had deteriorated rapidly. She said
feeling the heat from my hands awakened her to the fact that there were certain
things left undone, especially with regard to her seven-year-old son, that needed
tending before she moved on.
During those last few months of
her life, I became one of Jasmine’s primary care-givers in that AIDS ward. The
nurses called me Jasmine’s “boyfriend” and would arrange her hair in pigtails
and her face would beam when I entered the room. Me? I simply resolved to do
what I could -- to give what I could to a person in need. Not only because
Jasmine needed it, but because it was what I had to do. I felt there was a
larger story being writ and that I had a play my role in it.
And she would often request,
especially during times of extreme stress, that I use my hands in the same way
I did that first night. I never got it at the time. And when I would ask her,
she would only say that my hands ran hot (which they do) and that the heat
would lessen the overwhelming feeling of numbness that would attack her body.
As with the whole medical
establishment during the early days of the epidemic, the doctors could not
explain. Indeed, what I witnessed during those days was that the doctors were
often at a loss for answers or “prescriptions.” What I learned at that time was
that a healer, whether a doctor, therapist or whatever, must act as a channel,
or conduit of a healing entity or force. I don’t care whether you call it, God,
Goddess, Christ, The Great Spirit, Qi, The Dao, or whatever. Furthermore, in
order to become such a channel, there are essential qualities a healer must
possess. Some of these surely must be trust, faith, love, and humility.
Though different healers may
channel this healing energy through different techniques, none of them can heal
-- regardless of technique -- unless they use it with love and humility. Out of
all of these qualities, love is probably the most troublesome because all
healers have days when they are not open to love. There are no recipes or
formulas for staying open that way. To love also doesn’t just mean loving
others, it means loving one’s self too.
I learned in those days that
healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to
get up and walk around again, something Jasmine desperately wanted. I came to
realize that healing means achieving some kind of balance between the physical,
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions (spiritual in this sense
meaning the reality of interconnectedness). For example, Jasmine would never
walk again, and her T cells were, like, nil. In fact, doctors were at a loss to
explain why she was alive and resolved themselves to minister to her while she
was still alive. However, Jasmine became awake and though she was young (33),
sometimes she gave the impression of a very wise, very old soul with far more
knowledge than her years. I believe that suffering kicks up the evolutionary
spiritual dimension by a few notches.
Don’t misunderstand, Jasmine,
like many AIDS patients -- even more so than patients suffering from other
life-threatening illnesses because of the tremendous stigma attached to the disease
-- was lacking in qualities of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-trust. One day
she admitted that she felt these qualities were impacted by a lot of guilt,
shame, and ambivalence. There were issues Jasmine never had a chance to
address, some, such as some issues regarding her son, her addiction, and her
deep-seated feelings of guilt, she took with her to her grave. But when faced
with the seemingly impossible, we do what we can -- and that’s what Jasmine I
did, one day at a time, sometimes one breath
at a time.
In a way, we were like ships
passing in the night. I was in the midst of reinventing my life, starting anew,
doing the things I never got a chance to do, and exploring and actualizing my potential.
Sometimes I would forget that for Jasmine, this was as good as it was going to
get. There were times when I would forget and think that maybe she would get “better”
whatever that means. The reality was that she was on borrowed time and that often
worked to minimize her motivation. Over the years, I have lost too many friends
to this disease. Some emphasized that they were living with a disease, not
merely dying. I don’t know if Jasmine ever got there. But we learned to trust
one another, and laughed many times at how easy it was to revert to old
patterns.
I do believe Jasmine experienced
a degree of healing. But Jasmine’s “healing” didn’t occur at an individual
level, because we are all connected through a vast neurological network of
relationships to an infinite number of people and creatures on the planet. I
learned that the process of healing even one person has consequences for all of
us. It did for me: though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, acting as a
channel for this healing energy, Jasmine’s situation had a healing purpose for
me.
Most important to Jasmine was
the seven-year-old son she had to say goodbye to and as she went about trying
to resolve issues in her life, she seemed to become more at peace with her
illness. There were days that her smile would remind me of the Jasmine I had
known -- beautiful, alert, intelligent and spunky -- someone who took pleasure
in challenging me and my interminable teasing. But those days became increasingly
rare. Eventually taking care of Jasmine became a job that took priority over
everything else in my life, in the process burning me out. A part of all this
had a noble purpose, of course, but a lot of that was also to my tendency
toward codependency. There were times I would forget that I was but a conduit
through which some of this was happening and I would forget that Jasmine would
not get better.
And she took me hostage, Jasmine
did. Her greatest fear was of dying alone in that sterile hospital room. One
day, after a particularly rough night (Jamsine’s main caregiver, her sister,
and I had obtained special permission from the hospital administration), I was
irritable and tired. My life had been consumed by Jasmine’s disease and I was
feeling spent, confused, and angry -- all dangerous triggers for a person in my
situation. By then, Jasmine had lost her ability to speak and if we weren’t
there doing it, she would not be cleaned in a prompt manner, so there I was
cracking jokes about cleaning Jasmine’s ass and laughing about it. Sometimes I
swore I saw a grin on Jasmine’s face during those times.
Anyway, I was tired and I wanted
to go home, shower, and to re-energize myself. I tried calling her sister
several times, but she could not be reached due to a business meeting, so I
turned to Jasmine and told her I was leaving and would be back as soon as I
could. I hated doing this because she would become agitated if I left the room,
let alone tell her I was leaving. Jasmine’s was horrified of the idea of dying
alone.
As I left, I turned to look and
there was this look of stark fear on Jasmine’s face. At that moment, I felt so
bad about my own anger and it dissipated. I blew her a kiss and promised I
would be right back. She was still upset… but I reminded myself she always
became upset whenever I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby and
just when I entered the lobby, something almost physical stopped me dead in my
tracks. It was as if I had run into an invisible wall. And then it hit me... I
knew what was happening.
Jasmine passed away as I was
entering her room. When she saw me, the most beautiful smile of gratitude and
contentment came over her face. She couldn’t mouth the words, but the look in
her eyes -- I’m sure if she could she would’ve said, “Thank you, Eddie.” I stood
by her, heard the death rattle, and she was gone.
The only difference between
Jasmine and the rest of us, I came to understand, was Jasmine’s degree of
illness. It seems to me that the whole planet is going through what Jasmine
experienced with her terminal illness. My conclusion is that there must be a
way to for all of us to go through a cleansing process, or a way for us to
become conduits for healing in order to eliminate the hatred, greed, pain,
grief, and rage that we harbor for so long.
I think Jasmine’s greatest gift
was to teach me that we must all tap into this healing energy so that we might
become whole... I wrote this because I believe that so many of our loved ones –
our family members, loved ones, friends – have died at the hands of this
epidemic and people really only die whenour memory of them is erased.
My name is Eddie and I’m in
recovery from civilization…
No comments:
Post a Comment
What say you?