Honoring our deaths and re-births

I just had the most extreme pleasure last week of having dinner with my "sister" and coaching partner, Katie, and her new "boyfriend," Gerry.  I put that in quotes because this relationship is so much more than that; we just don't quite have the language for it yet.  Katie and I have supported each other in our journeys of self-discovery over the last several years, and the area of life that has been most important to Katie in all the time I've known her - in fact, she was feeling tested to the point of giving up, but she didn't - was finding her life partner.  It is looking more and more like she's found him - and him her - these days, and I got to meet him over this dinner, and it was so touching and wonderful.  So much so that Gerry, in hearing my life story and reflecting on all three of our stories, shared this quote with me as one of his favorites.  I told him I wanted to share it with all of you as a tribute to the man I believe will soon become my new "honorary brother-in-law."  In late February I will be meeting with Katie and Gerry to explore, capture, and document the intentions for their partnership.  Yes, you heard that right.  A little scary, right Katie and Gerry?  This will be a form of dying for both of them, from a life of comfortable, confident, yet somewhat isolated, independence to one of fragile, vulnerable, yet deeply connected, interdependence - a huge leap of growth into life at its best.

I have several clients/friends in the process of "dying" right now, from one phase of life into another.  Sometimes it looks tremendously hopeful, like Katie's and Gerry's story, and sometimes it looks like falling into a bottomless pit of hopeless despair.  It's really all the same - one door closes, another one opens.  It is a heart-rending thing to stand by, stay near, and support someone through.  There's nothing you actually "do," really, other than love them with all that you are, which is everything.  I've been there, will be again, and know how important it is to go through this, and I know what lies on the other side, so I wait with silent prayer and great compassion, standing in that wonderful and continual re-birth that life is.

Here's to Katie and Gerry!