Touching Death
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
Tags: death, intimacy, love, touch
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on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Relationships, Therapy Thursdays.
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I’ve just been reading about those experiments in Diane Ackerman’s “Natural History of the Senses,” and it is really striking how vital touch is to our experience of life. I’ve heard incredible stories from friends of creating sacred, sensual (not sexual) environments in which their loved ones were able to pass on, and I’m in awe of those friends, as I’m in awe of your care of your grandmother. I haven’t had that kind of up-close interaction with death, but I hope that when I inevitably do, I will connect to the journeyer with the same kind of dignity and warmth.
Sending love and comfort as you grieve. xoxo
I’m so sorry to hear of your grandmother’s passing.
That moment you had with your grandmother really captures what it means to love and be loved.
Thank you for sharing that moving story.
I will never forget being in the room with my grandfather as he passed away. There were many of us there, and I was just getting ready to fly back out of town. I said goodbye, knowing it would be the last time, and then I was hugging others in the room when we all realized he had gone. It felt as if he chose that moment to go, as if he finally had control over something. And it was quite an honor to be there.
You and your family are very much in my thoughts. And I celebrate your grandmother’s long life.
Thank you, Jennifer, for sending your love and for empathizing with me and for totally getting the whole touch thing. When I was stroking her face, her head tilted back and she looked almost orgasmic, which for a second, was weird to me, but then I thought, sometimes when the wind brushes my face, I feel tingles all over my body. What’s wrong with making someone feel good? Good doesn’t have to mean sexual. It’s all about intention, and I was glad I could give her some pleasure, or maybe relief, something.
Erica, thank you for commenting and for offering your condolences.
Cristina, thank you so much for sharing your story about your Grandfather. That’s beautiful. It’s interesting you think it was about control, maybe he just felt safer to go with you all in the room? Either way, isn’t it intimate to be that close to it? I’ve spent my entire life being so scared of death and this didn’t feel scary. Granted, she had lived a long life and she wanted to die and there was nothing violent or tragic about it, but still, I was surprised to find love and beauty in death. Thank you for your good wishes and thoughts.