I don't have any photos for this post.
But I have many, many memories. It has taken a long time for me to process my experiences of last year, in the bits and fractions of time that I have had for introspection since I have honestly desired to look into my heart.
A year ago last month a good friend of ours passed through the veil after a long and arduous physical battle with cancer. The words of President Henry B. Eyring when speaking of his father who also battled cancer ring true for me -
“When the pain became intense, we found him in the morning on his knees by the bed. He had been too weak to get back into bed. He told us he had been praying to ask his Heavenly Father why he had to suffer so much when he had always tried to be good. He said a kindly answer came: ‘God needs brave sons.’
This is so true of our friend. I was given the opportunity for God to work through me as a massage therapist to strengthen him and give what small gift I had toward aiding his physical journey. I need to preface with the fact that my skill and training were not in the area which I gave to him. I have minimal energy work training, comparatively. I have always felt close to my intuition and compassion as a massage therapist, but I am not an energy healer. Over time I have understood that God has given me the privilege of helping his children through the gift of healing, but I had never used it as I did for him. I was allowed to experience something unique; a testimony to me that with God all things are possible to those who believe.
I spent 1 day a week for several weeks driving an hour each way with Korrali next to me and Claire inside me to crash land at our friend's apartment, my massage table in tow. The atmosphere inside was turbulent yet full of the spirit of God- as many of those who have experienced faith in times of intense trial can comprehend. This amazing family - though they would not claim to be amazing- was somehow surviving when every moment was unstable and surprises were no surprise at all. And I was there to give all of myself to God so that he could work miracles. I would begin each session, working by intuition and prayer. Angels were there at times, holding his feet while I held his head. Standing by him as the therapy brought his energy, as I could see in my poor, limited view, from deep black to a brilliant white. For a few minutes each time, I experienced his pain - not the physical, for that was not for me to know, but his spiritual and emotional longing and grief. I did not time the sessions, though they were always between 15 minutes and 30 minutes. I simply began, and ended when his body was done. The feeling of peace and heaven in that room when I could feel his pain begin to drain away was intense. It was a place of quiet and reverence.
At first, we discussed oils and pain relieving creams. It only took 1 time for us to decide that essential oils and energy work were what we should do. I didn't know until much later that the sessions gave him hours of relief. He told me in later sessions that for a few hours after I left, he felt himself. As time went on, the time of relief grew less and less, until the days came when I worked on him while he slept in bed. There was a day when I felt that he was leaving, a began work and his spirit was thin, pressing so close to the veil that I felt there was nothing I could do. That day I felt at least four others with me. They held him at his head - which was on a pillow by the headboard of his bed, and other points around his body. I could feel a shift from the need for me to be there, to the need for them to be there. My own irrelevance was strange, and I knew that it was time for me to put more energy into the loving of my friend because his journey was coming to an end, and hers was in a sense just beginning. I stood there and silently sobbed. I knew he had more to suffer that I only had limited ability to ease, and I knew that all I could do from then on was steady and anchor his desire to stay for his family for the short time he had left.
I also massaged my friend, his wife. The enormity of her emotions and the inability of a physical body's capacity to contain them was a very different experience. It felt to me that her body was holding together by threads - that it was literally cracking from the immense internal pressure, exploding outwards but continuously shifting and hardening and bending to survive and somehow support her children and those around her. Her muscles reflected that as well. They were held taught in every way. Touch did very little to ease that - how could it do more when no one could take from her the burden she had to carry, ultimately alone except for her Savior? She didn't feel amazing, but I could feel her holding back, protecting everyone, including me, from the enormity of what was happening to her. To me, that love and desire to help when she was under so much strain IS amazing. I've thought a lot about weakness, about how sometimes we feel paper-thin, as though a whisper could shatter us into a thousand fragments and a sneeze could destroy our pretense of survival. At those times if we reach out into what feels like a universe of heartache and pray and seek out our Savior, he will aid us and cause our brokenness to be the strength that is required to accomplish his plan for us. Not change our weakness into something different, but like a palm tree in a tsunami, cause our very weakness to be what saves us because it turns us to Him. And she did that. And I felt her fall; when I placed my hands on her, I felt her day, or week, or moment and the bitterness of her grief and anger, and I watched her turn again and again to her Savior. How I wished that I could do more. But her living testimony strengthened those around her and it was incredible.
It's taken me a year to talk about it. It's taken as long for me to feel willing to again use the gift of touch to heal others. In spirit I have desired to give others what God let me give Matt, and I have considered volunteering in hospice. But in body I have felt cold and afraid to share that gift because it means opening myself to flashbacks and the continuing process of my own personal grieving. I have struggled with feeling that my emotions are illegitimate - stolen from what should belong to others. This experience was very close in mortal time to the loss of my best furry friend, and the extreme dearth of touch when Matt passed as well left me feeling isolated. In essence, I curled into a little ball and am now beginning to open again. I am so grateful for the opportunity to experience and see what I did and to grow and deepen in my testimony of the plan of happiness taught in the gospel. I have learned to better appreciate the gifts of the spirit and the all-encompassing power of the atonement of our Savior. I have known there is life beyond this since I was young, but now I feel constantly aware of it and that has changed everything I know. Other things in my life have been hard, confusing, painful, sad.. and I know they will continue because that is where we learn the best. But now I am prepared to move forward through literally anything and know with certainty that through faith, all will be understood at the end. Thank you, Matt and Sunshine. I know God is proud of his brave son and daughter.
