Marcy Westerling, 3.25.59 - 6.10.15 During the five years and three months Marcy lived with stage IV ovarian cancer, she devoted most of her still-considerable energies to staying alive: ferreting out and tracking clinical trials; flying to Philadelphia, the Bronx, Marin County, and San Jose for ferocious treatments that she endured without complaint; organizing support teams and other patients wherever she went; exercising to maintain her strength; biking to twice-weekly acupuncture and shiatsu to bolster her system; trying to solve the the dilemma of what to eat when her gut was in rebellion; and telling the truth about it all on her widely-read blog, Livingly Dying.
Most of the rest of her energy went to enjoying her hand-built life: quilting and reading, visiting and laughing with friends, working on her memoirs, advising her colleagues at the Rural Organizing Project and in other social justice endeavors (even serving as a Chief Petitioner on the minimum wage campaign this spring), walking her dog Sawyer, hanging out with her beloved husband Mike, and - perhaps most of all - sitting in and looking out at the lush gardens they'd built together at the home in Portland that became their refuge when cancer had evicted them from their life on a pond in the country.
But every once in a while Marcy directed her thoughts and her words to what would happen on the inevitable occasion of her death. On the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis she wrote a letter to her chosen sisterhood with instructions. Last week we faithfully fulfilled them. In the hours after she exhaled her last in her bed at home we washed her, dressed her in the clothes she'd chosen, tucked in all the items she'd wanted to have with her on her journey. As her loved ones gathered around her we finalized details of her burial. The next day her personal honor guard lowered her body into her new earthen home at River View Cemetery, by the edge of a wooded ravine on a sunny slope with a spectacular view of Mt Hood. She was wrapped in a shroud sewn by her sister, resting on a board crafted by her brother of white pine from his farm in upstate New York. We blanketed her with flowers and words of love and surely changed the pH of the soil with the abundance of our salty tears.
But there was something else Marcy said she wanted: kd lang to sing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It's up to the magic of social media to make that happen at her memorial later this summer. But in the meantime I had planned to include the recorded version in the burial ceremony.
As it happened, I had that very song on a CD in my car, Track 1 on a memorial mix for another dear friend who died of cancer a year ago.
The last night of Marcy's life, as her body was laboring towards death, I left her bedside just after 11pm, expecting to return at 7am to relieve her night-time team. By that point she'd outlived so many goodbyes, endured so much, defied her clinical decline for so long, part of me had concluded she was immortal.
I turned on my car to the jarring blare of something annoying on the radio. I snapped the sound off. But as I started to drive away from the house, my heart still tethered to the people inside, I knew I needed something. I punched the CD button. Out poured kd lang, voicing our lamentation and wonderment.
Most of the rest of her energy went to enjoying her hand-built life: quilting and reading, visiting and laughing with friends, working on her memoirs, advising her colleagues at the Rural Organizing Project and in other social justice endeavors (even serving as a Chief Petitioner on the minimum wage campaign this spring), walking her dog Sawyer, hanging out with her beloved husband Mike, and - perhaps most of all - sitting in and looking out at the lush gardens they'd built together at the home in Portland that became their refuge when cancer had evicted them from their life on a pond in the country.
But every once in a while Marcy directed her thoughts and her words to what would happen on the inevitable occasion of her death. On the one-year anniversary of her diagnosis she wrote a letter to her chosen sisterhood with instructions. Last week we faithfully fulfilled them. In the hours after she exhaled her last in her bed at home we washed her, dressed her in the clothes she'd chosen, tucked in all the items she'd wanted to have with her on her journey. As her loved ones gathered around her we finalized details of her burial. The next day her personal honor guard lowered her body into her new earthen home at River View Cemetery, by the edge of a wooded ravine on a sunny slope with a spectacular view of Mt Hood. She was wrapped in a shroud sewn by her sister, resting on a board crafted by her brother of white pine from his farm in upstate New York. We blanketed her with flowers and words of love and surely changed the pH of the soil with the abundance of our salty tears.
But there was something else Marcy said she wanted: kd lang to sing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It's up to the magic of social media to make that happen at her memorial later this summer. But in the meantime I had planned to include the recorded version in the burial ceremony.
As it happened, I had that very song on a CD in my car, Track 1 on a memorial mix for another dear friend who died of cancer a year ago.
The last night of Marcy's life, as her body was laboring towards death, I left her bedside just after 11pm, expecting to return at 7am to relieve her night-time team. By that point she'd outlived so many goodbyes, endured so much, defied her clinical decline for so long, part of me had concluded she was immortal.
I turned on my car to the jarring blare of something annoying on the radio. I snapped the sound off. But as I started to drive away from the house, my heart still tethered to the people inside, I knew I needed something. I punched the CD button. Out poured kd lang, voicing our lamentation and wonderment.
 click to listen | Well I've heard there was a secret chord |
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
I drove north to my home, the song excavating held-back emotion from my chest. Two miles down the road my phone rang. Marcy's sister. "Marcy died."
"I'll be right back," I replied. I took the first left, slingshotting myself around the block to retrace the asphalt I had travelled in the moments it took Marcy to cross the threshold. Marcy had died to the prayers of Leonard Cohen.
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
My eventual return home was bathed in the yellowing glow of dawn's first light. The next night, as I prepared to lead Marcy's burial service, I realized we hadn't yet tested the CD player we planned to bring to the cemetery. Amber set it up with fresh batteries. I got the CD from the car. Wait, I thought. I fetched a photo of Marcy and the candle I'd been lighting for her and placed them on the kitchen bar with the CD player. I lit the candle, drew Amber close, and hit the play button. Out came the song, clear and strong.
I looked down at my watch. 11:20pm. Exactly 24 hours since the song had last played as Marcy took her last breath.
I sobbed and wept as Amber rocked me.
I looked down at my watch. 11:20pm. Exactly 24 hours since the song had last played as Marcy took her last breath.
I sobbed and wept as Amber rocked me.
Marcy, 2.5 years into her terminal diagnosis, at my 50th. Please consider joining me and Amber in donating in Marcy's honor to the Marcy Westerling Legacy Fund.
Read More:
Marcy Rocks On (6.29.15)
In Memory of Marcy Westerling (6.10.15 obituary)
Our Stories Matter (3.7.15)
I Am With You (2.5.15)
Marcy Speaks Her Truth (10.28.14)
My Friend Marcy Has Cancer. I Don't. Yet. (12.14.13)
Read More:
Marcy Rocks On (6.29.15)
In Memory of Marcy Westerling (6.10.15 obituary)
Our Stories Matter (3.7.15)
I Am With You (2.5.15)
Marcy Speaks Her Truth (10.28.14)
My Friend Marcy Has Cancer. I Don't. Yet. (12.14.13)
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