I.75 — Sitting With the Dying

Someone you love will die, and you may be in the room.

There is little to say there and the wish to say it is a grip — on comfort, on being useful, on not having to simply be present at a thing that cannot be fixed. Let it be seen and let it loosen. Then do the only thing the practice has been for: sit, look, and hold the hand with an open one.

Presence is the whole of it. Attention, steady and unhurried, on the person as they are now rather than the one they were or the absence they will be. If they can speak, listen without rehearsing. If they cannot, be there anyway. A person leaving a room does not need the room to be explained.

No promises are made here about what comes after, because none can be tested, and the dying deserve better than being handed a story. What can be tested is this: whether an open hand at a bedside does something that a clenched one cannot. Sit there once, if you are given the chance, and see.