Marcy's long, elegant fingers were rarely at rest. "Purposeful" defined her every waking moment, even - or perhaps, especially - once she was livingly dying. For her hands, this often meant being occupied in the service of art and beauty. A quilter, Marcy laid down many a stitch while plotting organizing strategies in living room meetings around the state, and later, in the chemo chair and on flights en route to experimental treatments.

I'm not sure whether the rocks came before or after her Stage IV cancer diagnosis. I do know these exquisite touchstones became one of her many trademarks. Painting them calmed her and fulfilled that sense of purpose. Gifting them provided a physical link connecting her to scores of supporters and sister sufferers. 

When Marcy asked for prayers on Facebook, many responded with photos of their rocks. Her rocks in their hands. Her rocks on their altars. Her rocks on their supper tables. The day after her burial, when Rural Organizing Project activists gathered from across the state for their annual caucus, Marcy's rocks were among the cherished items on the remembrance table honoring her. 

I glimpsed the full impact of her rock project when I received a condolence note from Paul Cacciatore, founder of Libby's H*O*P*E* (*Helping *Ovarian Cancer Survivors *Persevere Through *Education). For years Paul had been providing Marcy with in-depth research leads, presented in layperson's language with the utmost care and compassion. When he learned of Marcy's death, he wrote to me with this story:

In the months preceding Marcy's death, I really struggled with my mood. Actually, that was true off and on for the entire five years of Marcy's life with Stage IV ovarian cancer. It's much too soon to write of those struggles - but not too soon to mark some of the turning points.

One came this spring when I recognized myself as a caregiver. I'd been accompanying Marcy to most of her major medical appointments since the very first meeting with an oncologist, had been there for her first chemo treatment, had flown to Philadelphia to help her enroll in a clinical trial; I'd received near-daily emails from her, many asking for help of one sort or another; I'd immersed myself in conversations about death and learning death care and bereavement practices in part to serve her and our shared community. I cared, desperately. And I gave a lot. But I'd never thought of myself as a "caregiver".

Then one day at a Death Cafe event, Jessica Thomas asked if I would help recruit participants for her doctoral research with caregivers. "Yes," I said - "but I'd like to enroll. I'm a caregiver." With that simple recognition (and a bit of paperwork) I entered into her study, a four-week practice of mindful photography. 

Each Monday I set aside time to take a photo after meditating; later in the day I looked at the photo and wrote a short journal entry. I discussed the experience with Jessica in a brief weekly phone interview, and a longer interview at the completion of the four weeks. These reflections helped me realize how the practice had added more spaciousness into my busy, often stressful days, a moment of beauty and relaxation that was "just for me." I knew I was unlikely to have taken those moments for myself if I hadn't committed to the practice for the study. One of the most useful aspects was in actually identifying myself as a caregiver in need of supportive practices.

Thus it was a no-brainer for me to say yes when Lisa Bordner offered me a treatment. I knew she did somatic work with people in hospice and caregivers but I hadn't paid much attention to the modalities she offered. 

"I’d like to offer you a Shirodhara session, my gift" she wrote in one of the most welcome emails I've ever received. "I’ve just had a sense of how much is up for you lately, and thought it might be a sweet reprieve. And I know how much you put out there in the community and in the world, and would love to give back as you do for so many." 

Thus I found myself on a massage table positioned under a copper cauldron that slowly and steadily bathed my third eye with sesame oil over the course of 40 minutes. It's an ancient Aryuvedic technique that Lisa describes as "one of the sweetest, simplest ways of nourishing the entire nervous system so the mind can quiet and body drop down and experience a sense of deep relaxation." It worked.

I went gently home and laid in a recliner in the shade in our backyard and entered the space of preparation for Marcy's death that had eluded me in the prior weeks. The next day, after working out and my weekly meditation sitting, I went to Marcy's house. I didn't come home until 5am the next morning. That day, the day after that sweet sesame oil had opened a door inside my heart, was Marcy's last day alive. The rest of the week was bathed in grace and love and broken-hearted sorrow.

Images from my weekly Mindful Photography practice. 

If you're interested in Jessica's study, here's her call for participants.
To contact Lisa Bordner about her somatic practices: [email protected].

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.

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. 

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.

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)