(This article was originally published by Laura S. Dodson PhD, MSW in 1991 in the Journal of Couples Therapy. In honour of Virginia Satir and also in the hopes of sharing Laura Dodson’s writing, I have asked for her permission to post her original article here to share with you. With her blessing, I share with you her experience of Virginia Satir’s final moments.
This article was particular helpful for me as I have recently lost my mother to cancer. My wish and hope is that people can be inspired to approach death not with fear but with love. In the article, Laura reflects, “She taught me that death is like birth” and this was my experience watching my mother pass. Dying is a transition into something else, a mystery, the unknown, the transformation of consciousness not just of the one dying but of those who are connected to the one leaving life on this plane. Thank you Laura for your writing and thank you Virginia for shining your light even in death.)
Virginia said she wanted “the world to see my death as a success.” At first I hardly knew what she meant. With time the meaning of these words is fuller. I feel she taught me how to die, and that she wanted to pass her learnings about this, too, on to others, just as she passed her other learnings about life to the world. It is too rare in our culture that one is invited intimately into another’s dying process. Her life and death have had deep, transforming meaning. Each person who shared her dying process, in an intimate way, has their own story of her. This is the one I experienced.
In May of 1988 when she was working in the USSR Virginia had more energy than anyone in our crew of six. Virginia remained fully focused on the work in each of the four cities where we lectured and did workshops, while the rest of us took more time to rest. She spoke and worked with families with great clarity and the people seemed to hear her message deeply. She made further steps to relate what she knew so well in family healing to world healing. It was well received. Often, she seemed more inspired to do and say her message in a simple, clear, direct way than I had ever heard her in the 25 years I had known her. She had no idea of her illness. Only two days before we left did she have a single pain. This was in the pancreatic area and a massage eased the pain. We assumed she had some of the parasites I suspected I had. On return when she learned it was confirmed I had parasites, she, too got some Flagil, and for a time continued to assume her increased pain was related to parasites.
In her usual style, Virginia was home only two days before she was off to work again, this time to lead the annual Avanta Conference (an organization that she founded and led, composed of people who do her work over the world). As she honored the older members, she announced here that she intended to live to be 102! A week later, after doing a short TV program in Denver in route, she returned to Crested Butte for her summer training program that she had been conducting for eight years. It was there that her skin began to turn yellow with jaundice, she became very weak, and was taken to the hospital at Grand Junction, Colorado. She learned that she had a blockage in the pancreas and a cancerous tumor was suspected. She decided to return to her home in Palo Alto arid go to the Stanford Medical Center. I met her in Denver at the airport where she had changed planes. She sat exhausted in a wheelchair that had been rolled to the gate. We had planned to meet in the Red Carpet Lounge, but she paged me to come to the gate instead. ‘‘l could have never gotten there. Laura, this is the greatest challenge of my life. I don’t want to lose my life!” She bent over in pain after the energy it took for her emphatic statement and mumbled, “And I wonder when I have such pain, why am I fighting for my life?” I had the strong feeling that she would die.
After a few minutes I asked, “What would you like from me?” Her response was, “Come when it is right.” We both knew that meant we would each listen deeply and when the psyche gave the word to me or to her, we would know, and I would come. During the next seven weeks, I worked on the program she had planned to do in August, and was going to Call ‘‘What Heals the Family, Heals the World.” When it was obvious Virginia could not be keynote speaker, I called kindred spirits who might be keynote speaker. Those calls signaled some of the people who needed to hear of Virginia’s illness. I reached Stan Grof, Bernie Seigel, Mary Catherine Bateson, Gerry Jampolsky, and Jean Houston. None could come to lecture but all telephoned Virginia with loving messages most important to her. Jean Houston did not know Virginia well, but it seemed clear to me that she should call Virginia also. “Are you sure, Laura?” “Yes, I am sure. You helped Margaret Mead when she was diagnosed with the same illness and Virginia needs you.” Jean called and Virginia asked her to call daily. She did. Virginia felt calm and enriched after these conversations.
It was Rianne Eisler who responded to our need for a keynote speaker, and how appropriate. During our time in the USSR, Virginia and I had been looking through history at the many examples of leaders who had hoped to create “better” governments, but whose attempts ended in as painful a situation as had been present before. We had tried to put a historical-psychological perspective on this painful reality. We spoke in the USSR of the need for greater consciousness and incorporation of the emerging feminine consciousness as keys to world healing. Rianne, in her book The Chalice and the Blade, had historically documented the lost feminine. What a fine link to have her accept coming in Virginia’s place. Another speaker was Craig Barnes who was an editor of Breakthrough when it was being written jointly with persons from the two countries and published in English and Russian. He shared human stories of the process of the developing connection with Soviet and U.S. colleagues as they struggled to tell the truth in this book. M’Lou Burnett who had coordinated and shared our trip to the USSR came; she and I led the experiential part of the workshop.
Despite her illness, Virginia was actively interested in the development of this workshop. It was important to her. She kept having people call during the workshop until she reached me to see how it went. She was delighted and said, “Remember, little seeds like this grow.” Her voice grew weaker. She told, over the phone, her dismay that she could not now even care for her smallest physical needs. At Stanford, Virginia had been told that the cancer had spread to her liver as well, and that she could have radiation. This would possibly give her six months to live, while without it she would have two to three months. She chose not to have the radiation. She decided to work with natural healing methods, such as cleansing diets, natural vitamins, and minerals.
During those weeks, she struggled with what she needed to learn from her illness, with her wish to write, and the probable inability of her body to allow that, and with her other many losses. In late August, I awoke one morning with a poem to Virginia. It contrasted this time in her life with the time when she was five years old and almost died with an erupted appendix. Her Christian Scientist parents were reluctant to take her to a doctor but in the last moment her father grabbed her from her mother’s arms and took her. This wound and this fight – for life – refined the richness and depth of the healing ability that would be her life’s work. As in the finest historical traditions of healing, it made her a ‘‘wounded healer.” Now, she comes to death’s door again. This time the task is surrender … not fight. This task is equally significant in her journey … again a wound that brings powerful transformation has come into her life.
I struggled for several days about whether to share this intense dream-like message with Virginia. When she was fighting for her life, how could I be so presumptuous? When I felt I must call her, quite unexpectedly she was awake and alone, and wanted to receive my call. I told her about the poem and asked if she wanted me to share it. “Yes,” she replied, “If it is brief, for my energy is too low to concentrate long.” I read it to her. “Thank you. Thank you, Laura,” were her words and we hung up. Two days later, I learned Virginia had stopped taking the cleansing medicines, she had stopped vomiting, which she had been doing for several days. She was resting quietly. I knew it was time for me to go. When she saw me at her bedroom door, she said, “Come in. I want to feel your energy.” She signaled a chair by her side with her eyes, and I sat down. We were silent, eyes closed, for ten to fifteen minutes. During that time, two or three other people who were in the room left. Virginia took her hand out from under the covers and I look that as a signal to hold her hand. I did, and we were silent another ten minutes or so. Her eyes closed again. The setting sun and the lovely evening hues coming into the soft room from the glass wall seemed to hold us.
“What would you say, Laura, if I said I want to make my transition now?” Quiet again. So profound words, so profound a moment. We sat quietly again for a couple of minutes. I found myself responding, “Virginia, if that is what you feel is right for you, I will help you.” She opened her eyes and the glowing smile I had seen so often on her face was there. Her eyes sparkled. “I am 72, I have lived a good life.” We looked into each other’s eyes for a time. After a time, Virginia asked, “Laura, would you give me a massage? Turn up the music loudly.” I was delighted to share this ritual with her at this time. It was one we had experienced many times, and it seemed so perfect now. I don’t know what classical music was playing, but the room filled with soft, strong energy. Whenever our eyes would meet her glowing smile would be there. Once she whispered, “It’s so right, it’s so right …” “I know, Virginia, it is so right.” Ecstasy was in the air … it radiated around and in us. We were celebrating her decision to die!! Weird though it may sound, it was a truly ecstatic experience.
After about an hour, I leaned over to Virginia and asked, “How do you feel now about your decision?” Softly and assuredly came back, “It is the only thing that gives me peace.” We were quiet as the last of evening died into the dark of night. In the background was the mumble and bustle of the other people who were in the house as they were tending to phone calls, visiting, preparing food. I asked, “What shall I say when I leave the room and meet the others here?” “Nothing,” she replied, “Say nothing. Not yet.” She needed time with her decision. Time to feel if it were really right. She needed full freedom to be with it … I left the room and said nothing. For the first shift of the night, I was on call to Virginia. She would ring her bell often for help. The first two or three times the requests were for the mechanics of life, but the feeling was more. The fourth time, I asked, “Virginia, would you like me to sleep in here?” “Oh yes, that would be good.” Her restlessness died down for awhile and she slept.
Someone awakened me about 3:00 a.m. to relieve my duty. Another loving friend came in and sat beside her. The next morning Virginia looked tired and tense. She asked that I tell others now of her decision. I left her for an hour and shared with the four women who were there. When I returned to Virginia she was in more motion than before but silent. Then she lifted her head and looked straight into my eyes with an intense look of panic on her face. “Laura, I am so afraid!” Overwhelmed with her intense feeling, I didn’t know what to say and finally blurted out, “What shall we do about your fear, Virginia?” She didn’t know, of course. If she had known, she wouldn’t have asked the question!
I felt lost, overwhelmed yet focused and searching … this was the first very difficult task in my commitment to help her with her decision. I went into a room away from others in the house, determined to sit there until I had something to say to her. Time passed – maybe an hour or so – before I found myself running back into her room without the words of my response yet formed, but I knew they were there. “About your fear, Virginia, this is what we do. We know you are going to die.” “Yes,” she said. “Next Sunday.” (This was Sunday.) “We set that aside over here,” I motioned to the right of me as far as my arm could go. “That is a given,’’ and paused to see her agreement. “Now, we focus on each moment between now and then, we focus deeply, and we do in each moment exactly what needs to be done in the most perfect way that we can.” So simple, but what relief this brought to us. Virginia slept several hours and those of us in the household began from a meditative stance to try to anticipate what needed to be done and how it might be done just right. Virginia took charge of her dying just as she took charge of her living.
Later that day, when I asked “What needs to be done now?” She replied, “Call my brother and his wife, and my daughters.” “And what about your sister,” I asked, knowing Virginia had not seen her for some years. Surprised at herself, she exclaimed, “Oh, I forgot about her.” Her hearing was fading, and as she would have done for me, I put my face to hers and said in a loud voice, “Now, that you remember, what shall we do?” “Call her too,” she sighed. So the journey was begun of doing each thing in its proper way and in its proper time. Her brother arrived with his wife and grandson. In his great love for Virginia, her brother exclaimed, “Ginny, what are you doing? You can’t give up on life. You have always been a fighter.” She opened her eyes, looked him right in the eye, and exclaimed, “Russell, you just don’t understand! I am not giving up on life. I am following my peace.”
After trying to persuade her to go for chemotherapy, etc., and meeting only her closed eyes, his grandson of 19 put his arm around his shoulder and said, “Granddad, if Aunt Ginny wants to die, let’s just let her,” and they left the room. I commented, ‘‘Your brother is having a hard time with your decision.” “Of course he is. So am I.” During periodic talks the next few days Virginia actively worked out more details of her dying, calling in people she needed to talk with to find the right details for her. “I want to be fully conscious as long as I can. I want to be with this process. Keep the pain meds as low as possible.” Another time … “everyone has to die sometime – no one gets out of this world alive.”
She had calls from Moscow, Israel, South America, Sweden, all of Europe, all over this country. Mail piled high. She screened carefully and felt concerned that we carefully convey hers was not a message of rejection but of limits of time that must be preserved for her inner process. Times like this are timeless, days seemed like weeks.
On September 5th, five days before she died, Virginia dictated the following message: To all my friends, colleagues and family: I send you love. Please support me in my passage to a new life. I have no other way to thank you than this. You have all played a significant part in my development of loving. As a result, my life has been rich and full, so I leave feeling very grateful. Virginia Now, Virginia talked less, slept more. Her sentences were often partial ones. She was considering rituals and ceremonies for her death. One morning she woke alert and instructed us to have flowers and music and sit together in her living room after she died. Then she slept heavily again. In another brief moment of her awake state to this world, she asked that all the people in the house be called into her room and ten or so people came in. She instructed each to go around the house and choose a piece of art or sculpture as their own, and to return to her and tell her why they had chosen that one. The ritual seemed so satisfying to her. Virginia requested that music - often meditative music – be played into the earphone set she wore. She liked The Course in Miracles read to her. She slept more and deeper. She began to use the phrase, “I am going home, wish me well on my journey.” Visions came to her … one was of crossing a river and seeing others who had died on the other side reaching for her.
The house became like a sanctuary. We looked in each moment for guidance for the next. There was more silence. We moved in quiet rhythms together. A nurse was always there. A special friend was especially present to Virginia for each of three shifts of the day. On Thursday morning, Virginia asked that we contact about 12 close friends whom she felt could help to “wish me home” to come to her on Friday. They all did. Before they began to arrive, Virginia had slipped into a deep coma from which she never awoke. She died on Saturday at 5:10 p.m., September 10. In the 24 hours before her death, her home was like a holy mosque, church, synagogue, all in one – a place of deep meditation. The California sun shone brightly. Her family and friends came together to talk quietly in the lovely yard, to sit in meditation and to share together. We were all wishing her home.
On Saturday morning before entering her room we could see the pumps of the oxygen she was taking was still in operation. Sighs came, sighs of despair, as that meant Virginia has not yet made it out of her body. We were indeed wishing her home. Later that day the family decided to stop the oxygen. When she did breathe a last gentle breath, with no struggle, we gathered around her bed holding hands. The ecstatic feeling was there again though tainted with deep loss. She made it out of her body! Almost without thought, ritualistic behavior fell in line. Jonathan, one of her doctors, who is Jewish, conducted the last ceremony in his tradition of breaking the glass as a symbol of transition. We spoke quietly to her. Some sang. As it was right, we left the room and tended to the business of calling people, making arrangements with the crematory she had chosen, getting information to the newspapers. When the crematory came, we quietly walked behind as they carried her still, peaceful, beautiful body. We scattered rose petals over her cover and on the ground. It was the glow of evening time again. In her dying days, Virginia was fortunate to have minimal pain, or at least pain that could be controlled, and an illness that did not cloud her mind. She provided a strong model of a dying process for us, and one that she wanted to share with the world.
She taught me that death is like birth. A barrier had been there in my mind … a barrier to the knowledge that there is no end. It faded and has remained faded. With this absence there is a deeper sense of freedom. Life and death seem a circle and passage either way seems natural and full. “Thank you, Virginia.” As a part of her obituary, Jean Houston wrote of Virginia: Virginia was one of the greatest geniuses of our time. She brought the field of family therapy to a new level. She anticipated a need for and created patterns for a deep healing in the 21st century for cultures and nations as well as individuals and families. Rarely in one human being is so much heart matched with so much mindfulness