I visit Nana regularly. On this particular day, I find her in the living room area sitting next to a woman wearing a bright purple hat. "That's a beautiful hat," I say.

   "They're coming to take my picture today," the woman replies in a shaky voice. "I decided to do myself up a bit and wear my favorite hat." I smile as I reach my hand to Nana's shoulder and give it a little squeeze.

   "Hello, Nana. How are you feeling today?"

   "Not good. Those nurses aren't listening to me," she exclaims. "They've been having me share my bed with a strange man! I keep telling him to find his own bed." Nana does not recognize her third husband.

   "Nana," I explain. "Don't you recognize Sam? He's your husband."

   "Husband? No way, no more husbands. I'm through with men. I was done with them years ago," she exclaims. "They just won't listen. I'm too old to be getting involved with men."

   "Ok," I assure her. "I will let them know."

   "And Damn it to Hell…can you tell them to keep that man out of my room! He's scaring me!"


   Maybe between Heaven and Earth she wanders, back and forth. She says she is tired. The words barely make their way out from her hollowed throat. And I wonder if she is tired of life. "I'm an old lady," she says. "Eighty years old. I want to go to sleep. I wish I could go home. I wish...I could go."

   I awake to the early morning forest mist upon my skin and rise quietly, leaving my grandmother sleeping upon a bed of leaves and brush. I am thirsty and travel to a nearby waterfall to collect water in an aluminum jug. When I return, I find her awake and dressing herself in a long, white ceremonial gown.

   "The time is near," she whispers.

   "I will return shortly, Nana. I must make the necessary preparations for your journey."


   In the Jewish tradition, the body is prepared in the most natural way. The deceased is dressed in plain muslin cloth without any adornment. No embalming is used. Nana would leave this world as simply as she had entered.

Nana lived a long life and a slow death. Slowly over ten years, her body and mind had deteriorated into the frail woman she was when she left this earth. Between life and death, her spirit hovered, a magnificent winged creature, her mind passing back and forth through the realities of space and time, coherent at times, and yet most often lost to us.

    I believe she had existed for sometime in two places, in death and in life, in heaven and on earth, between the entirely physical and entirely spiritual planes of existence. When she seemed confused or unable to comprehend what was happening around her, I liked to imagine her dancing in some faraway land. Perhaps it was like being in a living dream and having those around you shaking you, trying to wake you. When she seemed lost to us here were perhaps the moments her spirit was clearly in connection with the world beyond, her "insanity" and forgetfulness, a sign of her safe arrival and seeking of sustenance, thriving on the other side.

   Blessed as a sacred soul, Nana passed away on the High Holy Day of Rosh Hashana, The Jewish New Year.

   I remember entering the hazy room holding my father's hand. He was crying as he led me towards the plain, pine coffin left open for viewing by immediate family. Nana was wrapped snuggly in a simple shroud made of white cloth. The fabric was drawn up around her head and a few curly strands of hair rested upon her forehead. The look of confusion had finally parted from her brow. Her expression was peaceful, as if she were gazing up into the place of passing on, perfectly positioned, with a clear and beautiful view of both worlds.

   I return to the cavern. I carry little weight on my shoulders for there is finally an end to my grandmother's suffering. I come here today to embrace my grandmother who has been living sometime between life and death in the mystery of her own dying body. Tonight she will soon join the others in the life of "the other world."

   One last time, I enter the arched mouth that leads inside the sacred cave. Nana signals for me to accompany her around the fire burning softly in the middle of the great luminescent walls. The cavern's belly is a fiery glow. She has come to sit with me before her journey, in a ritual of mindful presence.

   She is tired. I can see it on her face and in her eyes that have grown darker and wiser with each year. The years of her illness have aged her. I can see it in her quiet spirit. She moves towards me, her back rounded over. I remember her years before, walking briskly, standing proud and straight. She was always proud of her posture. She leans closer to me as if to speak, and yet no words come, but a soft sigh. And I take it in like gentle, loving words. I know she longs to speak from her heart, but she must save her strength for the journey ahead.

   And so she holds my hands, and I hold hers; mine, soft yet strong and smooth with youth, hers soft and strong with age. I begin to count the wrinkles in her hands, like years in her life. Over a hundred years between our hands, mine twenty-six, hers almost eighty-four. The skin is torn away from muscle and skeleton, lies in heaps and valleys in the outline of a hand. I fight the deep inner ache calling me, like the living dead, to keep her with me, at the same time knowing it is her time to leave.

   I hold her and begin to rock her tenderly. Gentle words fall softly from her tongue, a Yiddish lullaby I heard so often in my youth. "Bei mir bist du schon," by me it's all right. I hum to the rhythm of her words. And we stay there swaying our back and forth motion until her eyes begin to gently close and open no more. I continue to rock, back and forth, holding her presence in my arms.


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