Grace is my daughter, on a career path and a busy wife and mother of two daughters.  She and I both wish she had more time to write, because when she keyboards her thoughts, prosaic articles such as this appear. - Glenn N. Holliman

This Is It

by Grace A. Holliman

I am a licensed massage therapist. Recently I went to see an older client who has never wanted to talk with me about her numerous health challenges. She is now on oxygen after a pneumonia scare last month. She is attached to a tube that is connected to a machine that makes a constant ebbing and flowing sound that regulates oxygen pressure to help keep her as independent as possible. After our session I asked if she was going to be able to get off the oxygen.    

For the first time in seven years she looked me in the eyes and spoke of her health in full truth, “No, this is it.” 

There was a pause. A holding of space. We were both comfortable with the uncomfortable. We didn’t push it away, cover it up, or avoid anything. A long, thoughtful conversation occurred between us after that moment. 

In his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, Frank Ostaseski wrote, “Accepting life ‘as is’ means we make peace with things as they are rather than trying to force them to be the way we want them to be-and getting frustrated when we can’t.” 

I believe that accepting life “as is” creates freedom and allows one to experience life fully, which is not easy to do. Accepting doesn’t mean we give up on loved ones, turn off the oxygen, or agree with what is happening around us, but we don’t waste time and energy lamenting the past or trying to control the future.

I’m writing this as an observer of the human condition. I try to put myself in the place of those I see suffering, especially the caregivers of the hospice patients I visit, but ultimately, I can’t. 

I am often reminded of the story of a Buddhist monk who finds his teacher crying on a hillside. The monk asks his teacher, “Why do you suffer?” The teacher replies, “My son has died.” The student says, “Are we not taught that we create our own suffering through attachment.” The teacher looks at his student through tears and says, “Yes, but my son has died.”