[from my files]
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I’m looking out of my husband’s hospital window at the medical specialty building adjacent to the hospital. I used to have an office over there on the 5th floor and worked there for many years back in the day.
I did therapeutic body work as part of a team of doctors and therapists who worked for a very kind and brilliant surgeon. I did a good bit of in hospital work in those days and learned so much. I remember that the Doc I worked for bought me a white coat and slapped a name tag with a bunch of initials on it and and he said “ We are not going to ask permission- just go over there and act confident and do your thing.” He said, "Ask for the chart and then write something down." and I'd say, "Well what do I write down?" and he'd say,"Oh just make something up."
It is really amazing what therapeutic touch can do. I could tell you so many stories from those days. Jessica, Bill, Gwen, Kathy, Nan. I'm flooded with memories being back on this campus. I’m thinking of Bill McKenzie right now, looking at our old office out the window and sitting in the hospital where he worked and where we sat with him in silence as he died. He was an amazingly kind man and in some ways I owe my career in bodywork to him. He was so beloved, and his memory is truly a blessing. I often think of him in thankfulness and am inspired to continue to do the best healing work I am capable of.
Grace seems to be tapping me on the shoulder all the time these days. In the darkness there is always a great light.
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Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said.. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made.. Or a garden planted.. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said.. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all.. the gardener will be there a lifetime.. Ray Bradbury
