Healers, Holders, Weavers

The weight of what I carry is the tombstone over my grave
Or the fire of the final pyre

The words are still very much with me until my dying day.

“Will you be my doctor for dying?” (from the woman who had her third cancer, and put my name in the letter read out at her funeral)

“We are boyfriend and girlfriend” (the 70-something-year-olds who were both my patients, yet didn’t get to say a final goodbye because of Covid)

“She saved my life and my daughter’s,” she wrote in a review. She had finally left her husband, after living with DV for years.

“What will happen to my daughter after I am gone?” (a patient younger than me who had defeated MS, yet was dying under 40 from bowel cancer, her family overseas. What could I say?)

The young mum who was diagnosed with a cardiac condition after having her baby, overwhelmed by the care for her baby and herself. (Things not going to plan, even when we try our hardest and bestest.)

“You saved my husband’s life,” she said, at a market stall at a Christmas community event. I had no idea. He was recovering from lymphoma, was very low and said he didn’t want to continue living.

How many more can I add…

We are healers, holders, weavers… if only we were allowed to be.