It all makes sense now...

I never imagined this would be the work my life would lead me to. It wasn’t something I planned for, or reached toward, or even understood from a distance.

And yet… I find myself here.

When I look back now, it feels like I have been walking through a life lined with doors…

ones I thought were closed,

ones I turned away from,

ones I didn’t know how to walk through at the time.

I think pain has a way of narrowing our view, convincing us that what we see in front of us is all there is.

And for a while, I believed that.

But something has shifted.

Because now, when I look back, I don’t just see what was hard or what was lost, I can see the love, the joy, and the quiet moments of becoming. I can now see doors that were open… even when I wasn’t ready to step through them yet.

None of it announced itself as preparation.

Most of it just felt like living.

But it was doing something.

It was teaching me how to be with what is without turning away, without trying to control it, without needing it to be anything other than what it is.

And somehow, without forcing it, I arrived here, at the bedside of those who are dying, and with those preparing to say goodbye.

I didn't have all the answers, or solutions, or a need to fix what was unfolding, I just knew not to walk away.

To stay.

To listen.

To hold what was there… grief, fear, love, even relief… without needing to carry it beyond the moment it belonged to.

This work it isn’t something I chased, it is something I was preparing for my whole life.

A place where everything I have lived, not just the pain, but the beauty too, can exist in the same space.

And what it asks of me now isn’t more training or more knowledge.

It asks for presence.

For honesty.

For the kind of trust that allows me to sit with someone as they lay down what they have been carrying. To hold it with, and for, them fully in that moment, and when their final breath comes, to give myself permission to release it without guilt or uncertainty. The learning is in underdstanding that it is not mine to keep, but to let them know it will be held for them.

Because that too is part of what life has taught me, not just how to hold…

but also how to let go.

It all makes sense now...

xo

Gabby