Creatively Facing Death

I would like to write over the next few days about the topic I have been pushing away - the reality that has been consuming our extended sangha for the last several months.

Our teacher Darlene Cohen is dying. There is no way any longer to sugar-coat it, or hold onto false hopes. We will be losing her very soon. Grief is such a tricky emotion. It comes at each of us differently. And with each one of us, differently on each day. Because I have not been one of the people who has been able to see Darlene over the past two months, I have responded by absenting myself, both physically and emotionally. I have found excuses to miss my regular sangha, some real, some created - extra burdens have arisen at my job; more demands have come up in my personal life. I have avoided writing in this blog, because here it seemed I might have to address the impending loss.

Over all, I have felt mostly a numbness, a lack of emotion. This has been aided by my distance, and perhaps that was my real impetus. On Tuesday, I went to my regular sangha, and sat. Beata Chapman was the visiting doshi for the night. Just before her dharma talk, she asked if there were any announcements. Susan Spencer, our wonderful resident ceramicist/jizo teacher animatedly said, "Darlene is going to have a cardboard coffin, and on Thursday, I will be holding a workshop at my studio for people to get together and decorate it."

I felt as if I had been socked in the stomach. All my careful avoidance tactics were stripped away in that one sentence. Decorate her coffin?

Intellectually, I understood this could be a healing act, a time of community gathering and mourning. But I was emotionally unprepared for the finality of visualizing a coffin, and everything that comes with that: death, funeral, cremation. I realized I was holding much more inside than I had thought.

Today, we held regular services at Russian River Zendo. We were told that Tony might be present, but Darlene would not see anyone. Cynthia Kear served as doshi, and I was the doan. Shortly after we arrived, Cynthia told me Darlene had said she would like to see all of us after the second sitting for about 10 minutes. By the time the second sitting ended, there were more than 30 people in the zendo. We all quietly went upstairs, unsure what we would find.

I had last seen Darlene at Frederika and Pete's wedding on Nov. 28. I almost cried when I walked into the living room - she looked so tiny and frail. But her face lit up and she said, "Michelle!" And then greeted each of us by name. She was propped up on the sofa, and had us all gather around her, sitting on the floor. Although it was clear it took some effort, she spoke to us for a few minutes, as a teacher speaking to her sangha. And she sparkled with wit and love, even in her weakened state.

Later, in Cynthia's dharma talk, she said that Darlene had shared with her about looking into Tibetan death practices, working on ways to face her own end. Darlene had said to her, "It's amazing how creative I'm having to be around all this!"

It is time for me, as well, to creatively face this death. So I will write over the coming days about grief, loss, sangha, support, and other imponderables.