A Final Savasana

I decided not to go to my 10:15 a.m. yoga class and instead go to the hospital to help my friend die.

It became a ritual, a beautiful class at the intensive care unit. Yoga is unity. And I joined my dear friend for a different kind of yoga around her hospital bed, dressed alike in our blue paper hospital gowns and matching masks. Shed been trying to heal for a month now, beeping machines and blinking lights keeping her alive  and for many weeks before, fighting off the ravaging beast we call esophageal cancer.

Photo by Joe Glynn.

Then, one day we faced the decision I’d only read about in the newspaper. When do you let a person pass on  freeing her from the tubes that can both save and strangle? My friend was alert enough to talk with us. Unable to make noise because of her tracheotomy, her parched lips mouthed her wishes. Her son dabbed her mouth with a tiny pink sponge, rubbing ChapStick on pale lips, lightly purple because of weeks of labored breathing.
Just be sure, she said.

Sure of what, Mom? Her son asked, leaning close and staring in to her eyes.

She didn’t seem to have the strength to add more, but I think we knew. As with birth, when words are few, death also doesn’t demand much talking. It is all in the eyes. And my friend would only say goodbye if she knew shed gone the distance and there was no more hope.

Without our breath as a guide, our body finds no poses, no energy, balance or expression. Her breath was leaving and sadly none of us could help her find it again.

In her last days, she continued to be my teacher. I always brought gifts when Id visit, trying to help even if I couldn’t heal.

Last week I brought her a small mirror Id found among my daughters make-up. It had been two months since my friend had looked into her own eyes. At first, I worried, What would she see in her face after weeks of such sickness? I helped her unclasp the mirror, her swollen and bruised fingers trying to hold tight. Her wide smile filled the moment. She saw the beauty of herself. Her own reflection brought her such peace. She held her gaze tight, nodding and thanking me for my gift. I hope she knew she had given me even more: the reminder that self-acceptance is the greatest joy.

Today is the day that her children had decided that they were sure. They didn’t want her to struggle any longer, never giving up, but with dignity she could finally give in. As we gathered around her bed, we tearfully embraced her as she found her final savasana.

I had always wanted to take my friend to a yoga class, but shed always say, Im just not flexible enough. I wouldnt be good at it! I know she would be proud to know that she actually became a wonderful yoga teacher, bringing the peace of unity and self-acceptance to a small dim room in the ICU.

– By Priscilla Dann-Courtney

Dann-Courtney, of Boulder, recently released her first nonfiction book, Room to Grow: Stories of Life and Family, published by Norlights Press, www. roomtogrow.info.  

Get up and go: Dann-Courtney will be doing a reading 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. Free and open to the public.

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