A Sit with M.

Francesca Arnoldy

I find my breath

Guilty? or Grateful?

I check for signs of yours

Lucky? or Lingering?

 

I see, in your tired eyes

-which I wipe with dampened cloth-

Yearning

 

I feel, in your shaking hand

-which I hold gently in mine-

Restlessness

 

I hear, in your muted sounds

-which I strain to comprehend-

Love

 

I sit as Doula

I sit as Human

I sit as Life, bright yet knowing

Witness to thresholds

present and still.

-Francesca Arnoldy, 2018

 

 

Published by Francesca Arnoldy

Francesca Arnoldy is the program director of the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine's End-of-Life Doula certificate program and author of MAP OF MEMORY LANE and CULTIVATING THE DOULA HEART: ESSENTIALS OF COMPASSIONATE CARE. A self-proclaimed “recovering perfectionist,” Francesca regularly tosses herself into thrilling, often terrifying challenges of unknowns like writing, teaching, parenting, and a number of other random tasks for which she’s entirely untrained. She lives in quaint Hinesburg, VT with her family in a most idyllic “village.”

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