THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

I want to start by explaining a bit about myself. I converted to Judaism eight years ago after studying for two years. I did it for myself, not for marriage it's a question I am frequently asked. I moved to Oregon from Toronto nearly four years ago after suffering a traumatic rape. I decided to finish my bachelor's degree in psychology. I have also been a state licensed massage therapist for the past eight years. After moving to Oregon where I had no friends or family, I discovered that "Wherever you go, there you are." I couldn't run from what happened, it followed me. So I got some counseling and decided to help others who had also been through physical traumas through therapeutic massage. A high percentage of my clientele are people with injuries, pregnancies, or those in counseling for rape recovery, or grief recovery. I provide them with a safe environment for positive touch, human touch, emotional release, and non-judgement, a place to get some additional physical and mental relief. But even my work never really prepared me for what I would feel this past December when my boyfriend's sister became more to me than just my future sister-in-law. She became a client.

Tuesday December 5th started out as just a normal day for me, but by afternoon my world changed dramatically. I was sitting at my computer typing a paper for one of my final exams the following week, when the phone rang. It was my boyfriend Ari, and there was hysterical crying in the background. He said, "I'm taking my Mom to Eugene Hospital, Rodger had a heart attack." I told him to let me know if there was anything I could do to help and that I would stay by the phone and wait to hear from him. After I hung up I was very confused. I knew that Ari was close to his friend Rodger, but I had no idea that his mom was also close to him, why else would she be going to the hospital with Ari? I thought maybe it was just for support. All sorts of scenarios ran through my head. I was preparing myself to help Ari through this tragedy. Ari and I had only been dating for nine months and we had never experienced a stress yet in our relationship, I knew this was going to be difficult to work through. Thirty minutes later Ari called me from the hospital and he was crying into the phone, "He didn't make it!" I told him I would drive right over, that it would only take me twenty minutes.

My drive to the hospital seemed to take forever. I didn't know what to prepare myself for. I had personally never experienced the death of a friend or loved one before. I am 32 years old, but my parents and grandparents are still young. I had a half-brother die of SIDS when I was about 11 years old, but I had never met him, and I was too young to understand how the death affected everyone. I didn't even fully understand my own mortality until I was about 23 years old (that's why I quit smoking). When I got to the hospital I went to admitting and asked the clerk where I might find the Stein family, they were with a friend who was admitted for a heart attack. He asked me for the friend's last name and I realized I didn't know Ari's friend Rodger's last name. The attendant said to me, "There is a Rodger Brenner that was admitted in the emergency room about three this afternoon." I thanked him and walked off toward the emergency room thinking to myself that it was ironic that Ari's friend Rodger had the same last name as Sherilynn's (Ari's sister) husband Rodger. As I came upon the emergency room and saw the whole Stein family crying, it hit me, Sherilynn's husband had had a heart attack and died! I didn't even know he had a heart condition. The full horror of the incident hit me like a ton of bricks. Sherilynn had just driven all the way from Salem to the hospital in Eugene to find out her husband had died. Sherilynn, her mom and dad and Ari were all in the hallway crying, and I was crying, and Rodger was lying in the room down the hallway. He died at age 33 of a virus in his heart that had caused his heart to swell to over twice it's normal size and fail. He had been golfing with his mother when he had a massive heart attack and the paramedics were unable to resuscitate him; he died in his mother's arms. He had just had a check-up the previous week and received a clean bill of health. It was all so final. There was no bargaining, no recourse, nothing but the cold hard facts to deal with.

The next few days went by like a blur. I kept thinking about the pain and sadness I was feeling and how much more magnified it must be for Sherilynn who had lost her husband and beshert (soulmate). I kept thinking of Sherilynn who was only 29 years old, their beautiful little 2-year-old daughter who will now just have memories of her daddy taking her to the ocean, and home videos to keep his memory alive and of the little baby boy Sherilynn was four months pregnant with. He will never know his daddy. It was all so awful. The funeral was Friday, December 8th. The sky was overcast, and the weather was cool and somber as over 200 people came to honor Rodger's memory with stories, poems, and music. Sherilynn told the people in attendance that the Friday before he died, she and Rodger had both found out the baby was a boy. They had decided Isaac would be his name, and he was due April 24th. As I watched all the guests file past the gravesite and throw a shovel full of dirt onto the casket in honor of Rodger's life and as tribute to their relationship with this wonderful man, I decided that it was the most heart wrenching experience I have ever been through.

It was about two weeks after the funeral when Sherilynn asked me to give her weekly massages until little Isaac was born. I was honored to be included with her counseling in her recovery process. So for four months I went weekly to Sherilynn's home to give her pregnancy massage, space to grieve, and an additional time and space for her to feel her pain. She is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met. She has managed to keep herself grounded, and her well-adjusted toddler's feet planted firmly in a loving environment, and her family has been such a wonderful support system for her.

When Sherilynn asked if she could include me on her list of possible people to be present at the home-birth of their baby Isaac, I was thrilled to say "yes!" I bought a book on the Bradley Method of home birth and read it cover to cover. I had been doing pregnancy massage for years, but I have never been present at a birth. But I also knew I was on a long list of people she might call, nothing was guaranteed, it would be based on how she was feeling at that time, and who she wanted to be present. A Bradley birth is very different from Lamaze or a hospital birth. A Bradley birth is very much about the birth parents and the intimacy of that experience for the couple. It is probably as close to nature as you can be in modern times for the birthing experience. Sherilynn and Rodger had their daughter by home-birth with a midwife, and now Sherilynn chose to have her son the same way, the difference this time was that Rodger would not be there to greet his new baby boy. It was something that was always present in the air, but with it also came the joy of knowing there was a tiny little baby ready to enter the world that would remind us all of Rodger and Sherilynn's love for each other.

Time passed, Sherilynn grew emotionally stronger, her 2-year-old daughter learned that Daddy was up in the sky with the stars and clouds, and Isaac grew bigger and healthier and closer to being born into this world. In April, I was scheduled to go home to Toronto for spring break from classes, I hadn't seen my family in almost a year. Four days before I was scheduled to leave, I decided to cancel my trip because it felt like I was trying to do too much all the time and I just needed a week to do nothing. As it turned out, it was a good thing I didn't go to Toronto on April 9th like I had planned. In the prior five months since Rodger's death, Sherilynn had endured her pain daily and now it was Pesach, another holiday without Rodger. The evening was spent with Ari and I, their parents, and Sherilynn and Arielle (her toddler) having a quiet Passover meal. Arielle has brought us all so much joy in the past during the darkest moments. She has the eyes and face of an angel, and a jubilant personality. After dinner Sherilynn was very tired and decided to stay at her parents' house that evening with Arielle rather than have me drive her back home to Salem.

Ari and I left his parents' house to go home around 9:30 p.m. We talked for awhile and then decided to watch Saturday Night Live before going to sleep. At about midnight, my stomach started to hurt a bit and I got crampy. I thought maybe it was the matzo, it doesn't have the best effect on my intestines. About half an hour later the phone rang. Ari and I looked at each other, "Who could be calling at this hour?" Ari picked up the phone, and I watched his eyes get really big as he listened to the person on the other end. He handed the phone to me and said, "It's Sherilynn." When I got on the phone she said, "Hi, it's time, I'm in labor, do you want to be a part of this? My dad is driving me home now, I've already called the midwife and she'll be there soon." I told her I would love to help. As I got dressed, again I felt like I was in shock. Maybe this is why I was feeling "crampy." This was really happening. I was going to help this little baby come into the world. I drove from Eugene to Salem in about twenty-five minutes. When I arrived at Sherilynn's the midwife and her assistant were setting up, Charlene (Isaac's Godmother) and Barbara (Sherilynn's birthing coach) were in the living room. I went into the bedroom where Sherilynn was and she mapped out her birth plan. Without getting graphic, and without compromising the privacy of this special moment for Sherilynn, I will just say that the next three hours (yes, only three hours of labor) were a wonderful and special experience for me. I felt privileged to have assisted with massage during her labor. I wept at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday April 8th when little Isaac Rodger Brenner, weighing six pounds (two weeks premature) and measuring 19 inches, was born into this world. In that moment nothing else mattered except his perfect little form. I bonded with this little baby. It doesn't matter how busy or rushed I am, when he is handed to me, everything else disappears. Sherilynn is a wonderful mother, and now there are two children who will benefit from her love and from this wonderful family's love and support.

In the last six months I have experienced more emotions tied to attachment and separation, death, birth, giving and loving, than I have ever had the pleasure and pain of sharing with one family, including my own. The one lesson I have been working toward in the last eight years is intimacy. The ability to be close to people, to allow myself to let people into my heart, the ability to accept love and connect even though the pain of losing someone is a possibility. Each person in this family, including my boyfriend Ari, has opened up an opportunity for me to connect in a different way. At 32, I have finally scratched the surface of what I have been working toward. I have experienced the pain of attachment, I have recognized that we are all interdependent. I have accepted that the universe is absolute perfection, the good and the bad are all part of that perfection. There have been no paved roads for me to follow to learn what I have learned, the way has simply unfolded. It was always there; I just had to learn to see it. My Dharma is to do massage, to help people, and once I become a psychologist I will help people in that way. I discovered my truth through doing my dharma. It's an exciting feeling to know there is so much more ahead to discover. It's exciting to have finally shed my belief that we are all separate.

This is a true story. Author's name has been withheld. Names of characters and places have been changed to protect and respect the privacy of the people involved.