A Meditation Technique for Facing Grief
Breathing in the world’s suffering helped me deal with sickness and death
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We knew that death was rapidly approaching for Libby when she became too weak to swallow her pureed food or even suck from a straw. My twin sons were only three years old when we started frequenting the nursing home where she lived, excited to take McDonald’s milkshakes to their great-grandmother.
On what turned out to be her last day, I lifted my boys over the side rail and oxygen tubing that surrounded her like armor. One hovered, giggling as he planted a kiss on her forehead. She was just shy of 88.
During that final week, I finally pulled my signed copy of Roshi Joan Halifax’s book Being With Dying from the bookshelf where it had lived, its spine still uncracked after nearly a year. I had purchased it at a mindfulness conference the first time I heard Halifax speak. At the time, no one in my life was actively dying, and a part of me didn’t want to jinx myself or my loved ones, so I kept the book on hold, knowing that sooner or later I’d need the solace it would undoubtedly offer during a time of need.
With Libby’s passing, Halifax began speaking to me through the pages I read, yet I only made it through the first few chapters before it was buried bedside among the stacks of magazines, books, and journals that had preceded it.
A week after Libby’s funeral, my friend Sarah’s two-month-old son appeared yellow, lethargic, and feverish. Their pediatrician sent them to the children’s hospital for tests, returning a one in 18,000 result: biliary atresia, a complete liver failure in their delightful infant. Survival would require a transplant, and he needed to teeter between not too healthy and not too sick to “score” placement at the top of the deceased donor transplant list.
I took her some meals, texted, called, and visited them as they cycled in and out of the hospital, making sure to steer clear of them whenever any hint of a bug lingered in our household. And I breathed. Days dragged into months as she waited for the call that seemed never to come.
During those difficult months, I started reading Halifax’s book again, in anticipation of hearing her speak at another conference. Yet I…
