Though I am categorizing this as a story, it is creative nonfiction — based on real events. Names have been changed to protect privacy. Each of us approaches and responds to death uniquely. I want to honor that particularity.
Over the last three years, I visited Sarah about every couple of months. I’d call or email a day or so in advance, and we’d agree on a time in the early afternoon. Sarah didn’t see well or move quickly, so I would ring the doorbell, peek in the window to see her sitting in her usual chair awaiting my arrival, and then I’d open the unlocked door and announce myself. “It’s Moriah.”
“Come in, come in.”
I’d settle in the chair opposite her, and she’d ask how I was. I’d tell her exactly what was on my mind at that moment, no matter how personal or difficult it was to admit or express. Her head shook, and her voice quavered more and more as the months passed, but I listened closely to every word she said in response. I had come to rely on her utter sincerity and genuine concern. I was convinced Sarah, who had only recently become my friend, understood and cared deeply about me. When I was finished opening my heart, I’d ask about her, and she would tell me—honestly but without drama—the health problems and every day difficulties she was experiencing; not in a complaining fashion, but matter-of-factly, always ending with gratefulness for the simple gifts in her life that brought her happiness.
I learned that Sarah was a Buddhist of Tibetan lineage and that she meditated regularly. I meditate too, so that created a bond between us. She told me about her teacher and some of the practices she had learned. She joined me several times to meditate with a local mindfulness group. She always asked me about my writing and insisted on buying my novel when it was published. I don’t know if she was able to get someone to read it to her. Her near blindness prevented her from doing so herself.
Sarah was so quiet and undemanding that people may have forgotten she lived in the neighborhood. She would tell me she felt lonely and she was hungry for news about the neighbors and the goings-on in our retirement community.
She found workarounds for her limitations, though. A personal assistant helped her with email, bill-paying, and the ubiquitous paperwork that inundates us all. Her daughter, Riley, came every evening to have dinner with her and help with anything that Sarah could not do on her own.
About a month ago, we noticed more traffic in and out of Sarah’s driveway. Riley began coming during the day, as well as in the evenings. Then she started staying overnight also. I stopped in for a short visit to learn that Sarah was on hospice and declining rapidly. Riley led me to Sarah’s room, where she was stretched out in a recliner with a cool cloth on her forehead. She clasped my hand, told me how much I meant to her, and thanked me for our friendship. She knew her time was short and was ready for death. We were both aware that this was, perhaps, goodbye.
But it was not. She lived for another week or so, and I saw her a few more times. The last one was the evening of her death. She was unconscious, breathing very lightly and gently. While her daughter took a short break, I played a Buddhist chant, hoping that Sarah could hear and understand the reassuring words. In the early morning, while I slept, a text came in that she was gone. I saw it as soon as I awoke and rushed to her house in my pajamas to see her one last time, standing by her bed, kissing her smooth forehead and gazing at her peaceful face.
After that, Riley came and went from the house, handling the tasks one does after death: taking care of property, family, and financial matters with the help of Sarah’s personal assistant. When I was finally able to catch her alone one evening, just before Christmas, she showed me the memorial altar she had lovingly and sensitively created around Sarah’s colorful tree. In the center sat her urn, carved with a Tree of Life. Surrounding it were photographs and mementos from her life, several that I recognized, and one, a Buddha card I had given her a while back. The altar was characteristically Sarah—unpretentious and beautiful.
Sarah told me she was okay after Joe’s death, and I am okay after hers. Each morning for the forty-nine days of her journey through the bardo or transitional state, I am ringing a bell and saying this gatha in her honor: “Body speech and mind in perfect oneness, I send my heart along with the sound of this bell. May all who hear it (especially Sarah) be awakened from forgetfulness and transcend all anxiety and sorrow.” Because everything is impermanent, I am letting Sarah go, along with the bell’s vibrations, into the universe on her journey home to the Source of Life.
The End
With All Due Respect 