I have the honor of witnessing the lives of people as they endure and transform through hospice. I touch Grace everyday through every person I am so humbled to work with as a massage therapist.
The thick tears welled up in my eyes and slowly streamed down my face. A moment of touching someone’s heart through a few simple words and then feeling the emotion in the air as my patient took in their meaning. Palpable.
I sat in a chair at my patient’s feet. What’s so interesting about this work is that I could work on someone who spent their life making millions of dollars or someone who is penniless wishing they had millions of dollars and in the end, feet are feet. Incontinence is incontinence. Blood is blood. The playing field is leveled near the end of life and things that came before just don’t matter any longer.
My patient sat in his Broda chair under a blanket. One tooth left in his mouth. The room smelling faintly of urine. As I massaged his swollen legs and numb feet, he looked at me with his one good eye and told me with pride that a man feels like a man when he has a wallet in his pocket having just gone to the bank. He wants to show gratitude to those that help him by giving them a tip.
I know he will never leave this facility. He still holds hope that he will walk out one day, even though he hasn’t used his legs in over a year. I honor that for him and dream with him. I looked him in his good eye and said, “Just knowing you is enough.”
He went silent. A single tear fell from the corner of his eye. The words hit him in his essence, his truth. He took his hand that he was able to move and raised it, wiped the tear with the back of his hand and we just hung onto that feeling that come from those words.
He smiled a gentle smile and quietly thanked me. I wiped the tears that had streamed down my face, wiped my nose and continued on, holding onto the humanity.
Just being enough. No money. No thing. No doing. Just being.✨
Photo credit: Amisha Nakhwa
Erica Hodgson, LMT is a licensed massage therapist with a passion for touching lives, opening minds and supporting hearts. Her deep love of being human brings her the most Divine experiences in her daily life. She loves to share those experiences from the heart allowing others to be in witness of all that is.