“What do I say when visiting my Mother’s best friend in hospice? She was like mother to me.”
July 25, 2023 | Georgena Eggleston | 1 Comment
Words are only 7% of what we communicate.
The rate, rhythm and tone of our voice is 34%.
Facial gestures and body language are the other 59%.
What is your Intention for making this visit?
Knowing you are here from out-of-town and this may be the last flesh to flesh communication what do you want to have happen?
Do you want her to know how her particular idea has guided you? Do you want her to feel your love without words conveyed by flowers, a gentle touch, a song you two sang together?
This visit is not for your mother. This visit is for you and the woman you are seeing now in this moment for possibly the last time in physical form.
She has supported you and loved you in ways your own mother did not, could not. She has loved you unconditionally. This visit is closure. Something our culture does not do well.
Tell her what a difference she has made in your life. Tell her as you hold her hand, touch her arm, rub her back or feet about the woman you are now because she has been her brilliant self. Recall the funniest thing the two of you did. Share that.
Allow yourself to feel your sadness, despair and be in the moment. Showing up as the “Brave One” with no tears is contracting your tightly-wound nervous system even more. Neither of you requires that energy in the room.
Return to your Intention. Are you going because it is your duty, so you won’t feel guilty?
Allow yourself to breathe, go inside and feel deep relaxation as you imagine what you would want to have happen if you were the woman in the bed.
Then leave your car, knock on the door and allow yourself to say as few words as possible. Simply be the Light and the Love that you are.
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Georgena Eggleston
My transformation from speech-language pathologist to Grief Practitioner was a journey of learning to connect with my bodymind and turning the Divine Doorknob to reunite with my Life Force - my Higher Consciousness, my Deepest Self.
My Gentle Paradigm of embracing grief unfolded as I experienced the losses of my parents, business, home and the suicides of my brother and teenaged son in only seven years. Later releasing a marriage of nearly four decades allowed more grieving. This helped me to become a model of someone who has successfully moved through grief of many kinds and led to my embracing the title of Grief Practitioner.
It is incumbent on us to not make the dying feel sorry for our grief over them dying. To the extent you can, make the experience about them, not yourself.