Never too old
Turning 70 this year, this is my mom’s best friend. She just found out a couple days before that the pancreatic cancer has returned. All she wanted was to be tied. To be held. To finally relax.
She was 3 months into an excruciatingly brutal battle with chemotherapy and radiation for pancreatic cancer when she told me, “Kate, the only thing I want is just to be tied by you.”
This is my mom’s best friend. She has known me since I was 9 years old. I wasn’t sure she was gonna make it through this…the odds are not in her favor. Emaciated and sliced open removing numerous parts and pieces of her body. She rang the bell in Aug 27th, 2024, the last day of her treatment. Nearly a year later, she received not so good news a couple days before I saw her. “The cancer is back Kate. I just need to make it to my son’s wedding. He wants to get married next fall.” It’s her only son. I sit in silence with her. The wind in our hair as we sit under the Japanese maple tree. Her sweet head of hair finally grew back, although she looked quite fashionable in the wig, gaining a new persona at 69 years old.
“I just want to feel something nice on my body. It’s been through a lot. Most of the time it doesn’t feel so good.”
She was in such a beautiful state of bliss and euphoria. Heavenly. Never having felt anything like this before.
I was reduced to tears with the honor I felt taking her into the ropes. Her willingness to share this experience with me. Getting to hold her, letting her feel tenderness and supported. To feel something other than the brutality of treatment and surgeries. To offer a space for her to truly be held.
Beneath the Japanese Maple tree we faded into another dimension, entering into the ropes, into a sweet and tender Shibari session. She was in a state of complete bliss, “a euphoria” she later explained.
Touch is so important. Being able to provide this space for tenderness, depth, care to her hard working body. I can’t imagine another context in which I would I get a chance to hold her like this. Yet, this experience allows for just that, hours of attention, devotion, love, and holding.
Never too old. Too sick. Too overweight. Too broken. Too Anything. Ropes are for everyone. Anyone.
I feel so incredibly grateful that I wasn’t “too late” getting to her. I don’t know how her next round of treatments will go, but this memory. This might be one of the most significant moments we have ever shared together. Love you Peg❤️
