A few days ago, I was called to sit with a man named Bart. He was nearing the end of his life. There was nothing for me to do. No task to accomplish. No words to speak that would matter more than presence itself.
I was there simply to sit beside him—to offer presence, to rest in stillness, to send the light. To be a spiritual companion for him in those final days. And so I did.
Bart was mostly sleeping.
The room was quiet, held in that particular stillness that so often comes when a soul is preparing to leave this world.
I sat in silence, aware of my breath, aware of the subtle presence of this man who would soon be gone from the eyes of this world. There is a profound mystery in such moments.
The mind cannot grasp it. And so it eventually falls away—leaving only the heart: bare, open, surrendered to the depth of what is unfolding. It is here, in this liminal space, that one begins to feel the truth of things that words so often veil.
That life is not contained simply in the body. That presence is not defined by form. That love is not dependent upon breath.
This morning, I learned that Bart had passed quietly in the night. And when I heard this, grief rose swiftly in me—a deep ache, sharp and full. And then, just as swiftly, I felt something else: a falling into deep love. An opening. As though the very grief itself became a doorway—and through it, I was drawn into a vast, unconditioned love that holds all things.
I saw again that grief and love are not two things. Grief arises when the mind believes that love has been lost. But this is not true. Grief is not the loss of love—it is love revealing itself more deeply than before.
If we stay with it—if we breathe through it—if we allow it to soften us rather than close us— then grief becomes what it has always secretly been: A portal. A passageway into the source of all things and a love beyond measure..
To grieve is to feel love stretching beyond form. It is to stand at the edge of the seen world, and to glimpse what cannot die. It is to be taken back—gently or fiercely—into the source of all things. Into what was never separate. Into what never leaves. Into home.
So I sit now with Bart in my heart. And I see again: There is no separation. There is no end. Love endures. We endure in love. And grief is the gentle hand that leads us back to this knowing.
May we not fear it. May we welcome it. And through its doorway, may we remember what never leaves us— what we have always been, and always will be.
Home.
Nigel Lott teaandzen.org
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