Coincidentally I met Sylvia the day I quit hospice. She was referred to me by a poet living in England, named Gerald England. She emailed me that she was a poet, happened to be living in my town and had stage IV liver cancer. We quickly arranged a meeting. We met at her favorite hang out, the Starbucks about one fourth mile from her house. She looked more healthy than most and was a vivacious German beauty. She was into metaphysics and denial as long as possible.
Sylvia quickly introduced me into new age therapies such as Reiki and ancient wisdom written by long hard to pronounce names. Soon after meeting we recorded our poetry together, did podcasts about poetry and life. She published a book, In The Garden of Illness, did a book signing at Barnes and Nobles. I enlisted an artist friend to write a book review which appeared in the El Paso Times. She taught a writing workshop for Tumblewords. I made a web site for her. Ironically, she said she had to be dying to feel this alive!
For the first six months I knew her she kept a hearty appetite for everything poetic and delicious, then her world lessened. She answered her phone less, ate less and she could no longer tolerate the five minute ride to Starbucks to meet her friends.
Sylvia could still be enticed into a phone conversation occasionally, although she started out by saying she was too tired to talk long but would proceed to talk for seventy minutes enthusiastically about the current wisdom she was reading…until the day came that she renounced everything saying that it was all just talk and meant nothing. We agreed that all the “wisdom” was at best tools for us or just pointers to something not the something itself. These renunciations did not make her hopeless. She had finally synthesized all that she had read into a wisdom that pointed to herself where she found peace.
She began to sleep more. Morphine and fentanyl were constantly needed and no food was her friend. The next to the last visit I saw her she laughed about her canes, calling them fashion for the handicapped. She apologized about her slow speech and her inability to wax poetic. Then she surprised me with a robe jumpsuit like the one she was wearing saying she was giving them to all her friends. She said she felt like she was being hugged when she wore hers and wanted her friends to feel they were getting a hug from her when they wore theirs.
Our last phone conversation she told me she had just returned from a psychic fair to get an aura photo. A five minute ride, fifteen minutes there, five minutes back and she was wiped out. She was in bed holding her cell phone. I told her when she needed to sleep to let me know and I would let her go.
She told me for seven years she had gotten an aura photo. She liked to put them together and compare. I asked what did the last one show? Written interpretation: She was at peace and would join the great void soon. Amazing. “I have to sleep now,” she said.
My last visit she lay in bed deep asleep. Her husband called her name but she did not stir. I began to stroke her cheek. She smiled but could not speak or move. Her husband called her name again. She opened her eyes and stared unfocused for a moment and then closed them. It was her 47th birthday. Silent tears flowed down my face. I tried hard to keep my voice from wavering. I was disappointed in myself because she was at peace and would not want sadness around her. But grief is an unpredictable weather, a reminder of the temporal delicacy of created things lunging into eternity. I knew this was my last visit.
Today I received a phone message that Sylvia died 3-21-08. Another coincidence. Sylvia was reborn on the first day of Spring with daffodils and purple leaf plums trees blooming in the transitional chill.
I wear the gift of Sylvia. She keeps me warm.
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