Staying Open

My aunt Jeannde came to my yoga classes at 87. She bent and twisted and breathed next to the twenty-somethings in the room. When I told her a few of my students found her inspiring, she couldn't understand why. Age meant nothing to her, except that her body answered less easily than it had in her years as a dancer.

There's a photo of her with whipped cream smeared across her face. She was playful right to the end.

Melissa and I said goodbye a few days before she died. She was somewhere between this life and the next, in a lot of physical pain, and not scared. We managed a few words. We told each other what we had meant to each other. We said I love you. Then we said goodbye.

I've thought about that room a lot since. Not because she made dying look peaceful. Because she stayed with what was happening, including the parts that hurt.

Most of the people I work with have learned the opposite move. When something hurts, or turns uncertain, or doesn't fit the calendar, they close around it and keep going. You override the part of you that is tired or afraid, and you perform through it. It works for a long time. That is the problem with it.

Jeannde didn't perform anything. She was in pain, and she said I love you in the same breath. She didn't leave herself to get through the moment.

At each threshold, there's the same choice: to stay or to close around it and go. She was in a lot of pain, and she stayed.