Written and Narrated by the author, Judith Johnson.
My mother’s given name was Grace, but we called her Cake. She and I shared a home during the last nine years of her life from age 80-89. On the balmy and beautiful Sunday of her final Memorial Day weekend, Cake fell backwards down a flight of stairs. I was a mere five yards away and out of sight when I heard her cry out a millisecond before her head hit the cabinet at the bottom of the stairs, and she landed in a thumping heap on the floor.
In that instant, every cell of my body screamed with terror as I ran to find out if she had survived and, if so, how broken she was. Blood was spouting from her head and elbow to the rhythm of her heartbeat. Calm, as she had always been in a crisis, the RN in her directed me to elevate her head, compress the wounds, and call 911.
I didn’t have enough arms and for twelve long minutes until the EMTs arrived, the rest of the world disappeared as I held Cake and felt more helpless than ever before. And my love for her was magnified more deeply than I had ever loved anyone before. My life as I had known it was disappearing from view as I became consumed by fear, shock, and my new responsibilities as a 24/7 caregiver and patient advocate in territory I had never seen before.
Yes, it was horrible. But there was also tenderness and a deepening intimacy that opened up between us that...
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Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission.
Published by Monkfish Book Publishing.
Article Source:
Making Peace with Death and Dying
Making Peace with Death and Dying: A Practical Guide to Liberating Ourselves from the Death Taboo
by Judith Johnson
Making Peace with Death and Dying dissolves death anxiety and equips readers to encounter death peacefully and well-prepared. Readers learn to: appreciate death as a natural part of life, be of greater service to the dying and grieving, live with greater purpose and passion, be more peaceful in the presence of death, and to approach death on one’s own terms with wisdom and competency.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Judith Johnson is an author, mentor, and educator whose mission is to help others to raise the level of consciousness from which they are living their lives. For over forty years, she has been studying and teaching the dynamics of how our beliefs inform our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as individuals and in our relationships, social order, culture, and institutions. Judith’s work draws upon her own life lessons, wisdom teachings from around the world, doctoral degrees in social psychology and spiritual science, and her experience mentoring others since 1983.
ordained as an interfaith minister in 1985, she serves as a chaplain at her local hospital and counsels and comforts the grieving. She is the author of The Wedding Ceremony Planner and Writing Meaningful Wedding Vows.
Visit her website at JudithJohnson.com
More books by this Author.
