She told us that, in her grief and fear, she wished we could all hold her.

I took note.

So that an hour later, when we opened the grief ritual, I went up to her and said, Would you like us to hold you?

And she waffled, and said, Yes, maybe a bit later.

And I watched her during the ritual care for others, watch over them, hold space (as was her lifelong pattern, she told us).

And as time was waning, the drums were slowing, I saw her holding space for yet another, and I intervened.

A fraught thing, to interrupt someone else’s process. To nudge them down a path. There are wise people in the grief community who say, Hold people as able. Allow them their individual journey with grief.

Here though, I went off script, and waved over another facilitator. I told him I was taking her to the altar, and he replaced her in her duties of watching over another participant.

I said to her, It’s time.

And she said, Are you sure?

And I said, Yes. And I extended a hand to the altar, open.

As she moved to the altar, I raised a hand and another participant arrived, so we were three. At first she grieved alone, and then she asked for a hand on her back, and then, at long last, she asked for what she really wanted. She asked, Would you hold me?

And so I held her in my lap, she a mother and me a son, but in that moment, it was I who hummed to her and caressed her hair.

The comedy of our bodies, mine willowy and lengthy and hers older, rounder. And yet, it worked. My arms and legs enveloped her. She leaned back on me and wept deeply. I hummed. I muttered, Yeah. I muttered, We got you.

Minutes went by. In the background, drumming, singing. Behind me, unseen, the small body of our second helper leaning against mine so that my back was supported.

She wept and wept. There’s an energy to a person in deep grief. No matter their age, it seems a child comes out. Maybe because children are the only ones among us who know how to grieve.

So here she was, old enough to have adult children, crying, shaking. This time having the experience not of comforting, mothering, but of being comforted, mothered. By me, and not just me. But the twenty people singing, dancing, or grieving alongside her.

She had said that she wanted to be held by all of us. And in a way, all of us were holding her, by holding this ritual container. But I wanted something more for her. So I raised my hand again and in moments another participant crouched down beside me.

What do you need, she asked.

And I said the first thing that came to mind: More love.

Our third helper smiled, and arranged herself in front of our griever, and cuddled up on her. And so the three of us enveloped her bodily as she cried and cried. And she had the experience of being undeniably, radically, and truly held by us.

Was it me who tipped the scale, who made this happen? Maybe. Maybe it was my ego wanting to be the healer who saved the day. Maybe it was my discomfort with her grief. Maybe it was my own touch hunger seeking sustenance.

I will own those voices were there. But there was another voice that came through me. And called her to the healing ground. I like to think it came not from me, but from us. From the twenty of us in that room. From every human being who has ever loved this grieving woman.  From all our wise and well ancestors. From the cedars swaying above our little yurt. From the energy that bids a cedar drop a cone and sprout a sapling. From the generative life energy that underpins all of this. And a deeper current still, the love that comes up to meet us. That holds us even when we don’t know it. That catches us when we fall. Composts us when we die. The love that holds absolutely everything. I like to think that, on that March afternoon, the love came through me.