Ep. 103-The Interview: Mary Suzanne Garvey

Mary Suzanne lived in a nursing home for 2 1/2 years as her mother declined. Hear how being present for those about to die has changed Mary's life, and how the conversations with those we cannot see, can change everything.

Trigger Warning: This practice may include references to death, dying, and the departed.

Transcript

Hello all and welcome to another episode of Byte-sized Blessings.

In this episode,

Episode 103,

I interview Mary Suzanne Garvey,

Who describes herself as an artist,

A writer,

A selkie,

And a muse on the loose.

I was introduced to Mary Suzanne by my friend Jen Pierre-Rich.

And Jen told me a story that was kind of astounding,

That Mary had moved into a nursing home when her mother was very ill and lived there for two and a half years as her mother slowly declined.

I thought,

I have to meet this person.

Her story is a little near and dear to my heart because when I was a child,

My mother often took me to the nursing home in which she worked.

So meeting the residents,

Getting to know them over the course of the years,

It really informed the love I have for those who are older and all the stories and life experiences they have.

So now episode 103 of Byte-sized Blessings.

He had what I would call an ecstatic death.

And when he was laying on his deathbed,

He did what many people do,

Which is he saw angels.

He reached up and he was in a state of bliss.

And my aunts and uncles were there and they were like kind of thanking me for intervening because this outcome of the latter part of their lives was probably different than it could have been if they were in a nursing home.

I don't know.

But anyway,

He was obviously in the presence of something that was palpable in the room.

I couldn't see anything,

But I could feel that there was something there.

I think I am,

I would have to say,

Just a complex human being with just a lot of layers to me.

First of all,

I feel like I'm a lucky human being.

That's the kind of human being I am because I'm here.

And I'm going to turn 61 in a couple of weeks.

And it's a huge deal for me to be here.

I mean,

Just to be still in a body and thriving in life.

And then I am thinking about how I'm a late bloomer.

So I'm that kind of human being where I didn't really come out of my shell until later in life.

And I'm quite disheveled.

I just kind of made friends with being a disheveled mermaid,

I call myself.

And I am like,

Just really never organized.

Like I do not really possess much of that skill.

And I'm a passionate person.

I am really a maker.

I think if I'm not making,

I don't feel right.

I don't sleep well.

And I have to be engaged with my muse in order to be really at peace with myself.

So there's this constant kind of dance because one cannot always be making,

You know.

You need to have,

There are seasons to making things.

And so even if I'm not painting or making stuff with my hands that way,

I try to engage with writing.

And I really love drawing.

Like I love to lay in bed and draw.

It just really calms down my nervous system.

So I've been making things since I was a little girl,

And I know that it regulates my system in a way that nothing else really can.

So it's kind of my medicine.

I remember like years ago,

I went to see this five element acupuncturist and they sort of ask you a million questions and then they diagnose you as an organ.

And everyone has a predominant organ.

And my organ is the pericardium.

And so in the pericardium,

The emotional connection to that is joy or lack of joy.

And so it's just interesting to me to think of us all kind of walking around like organs,

Sort of bumping into each other.

And if we're in alignment with our organ,

Then we're,

You know,

Things are good.

And if we're not,

Then we're kind of,

We kind of lose our balance.

I actually learned something so interesting about the pericardium a few months ago.

An acupuncturist,

Who does twina,

Was saying that it's known as the emperor's guard.

The heart is the emperor.

The pericardium is the emperor's guard.

And so,

You know,

Energetically,

What the pericardium is supposed to do is it guards the heart from slights,

Pains,

Bullying,

Heart emotions,

As best as it can.

You know,

It tries so very hard to protect the heart from taking on those sorrows,

Those sadnesses,

Those painful and sometimes horrific experiences we have in life.

But you know what?

Even the pericardium can get so overwhelmed that those stories and those incidents can make their way into the heart.

And I think when it reaches the heart,

That's when our own internal stories start changing and potentially our hearts,

Quote unquote,

Get hurt.

And then we carry around these feelings or emotions to overshadow everything else in our life.

Anyway,

I have a special spot in my heart for the pericardium because,

You know what?

It's trying so dang hard to protect us and protect our hearts.

But even pericardiums get tired every once in a while.

So we're overwhelmed.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yes,

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean,

Just that feeling of having our heart open,

Feeling loved.

I mean,

There's so much to defend against just going to the grocery store sometimes,

Like getting through a day.

You're always sort of,

You know,

Finding,

I'm finding myself guarding,

You know,

Just to get through and then just to feel into how that feels,

How that doesn't feel good.

So it's interesting.

When I was a couple of years ago,

I was taking care of my mom.

And you know,

I had assumed the role of mother really in a way or kind of guard to her.

And I was kind of feeling like,

I've got to have it together here.

I've got to,

I've got to,

You know,

I'm in charge and she's my daughter now.

And then she just kept melting my heart open.

She would do things and say things that made me realize,

Oh,

She's my teacher.

Like,

She's showing me,

You know,

Really what matters.

And it was so humbling to realize that though I was in the role of guardian,

I had to bow to her,

Her showing me what really,

What really matters.

I was brought up Episcopalian,

But basically I think I was always kind of a little natural pagan like that.

I just survived church barely by the skin of my teeth because it was a place where my brother and I would try not to burst out laughing.

I mean,

It was basically,

We went to church and then we got to go out for breakfast.

Church was the payment for going to breakfast.

And I found it just extremely stuffy and it made no sense to me as a child.

So yeah,

I didn't really feel any God there.

You know,

I don't think I felt any God-ness until much later in my life.

And so religion was not a very nourishing thing.

My mom was into it.

I don't know.

She became more zealot,

More of a zealot later on too when she had cancer and she sort of found peace in it.

But no,

It wasn't at all a place of anything but just getting through it and getting dressed up,

Getting through it and then going to breakfast.

You alluded to this with what you just said,

But when did that energy come calling for you that the energy of God or that pagan energy,

However you describe it,

When did it start making itself known to you?

I think probably a little bit in high school,

But I didn't,

My heart didn't really burst open or feel the dimension,

I guess I would say that's holding us,

Like that vast awareness that's God,

That's God-ness or whatever,

However you want to put it,

That is interacting with us.

But I didn't feel that until I was in my later 20s.

It had to do with my grandfather again because I had been studying theater and I was really involved in it in my third year of college when suddenly my mom called and said,

Honey,

Could you go stay with grandma and grandpa for the night?

So I went across town on the bus and my grandpa was 98 and my grandma was 102.

And I stayed the night and then within a very short time,

I realized that my aunts and my uncles were growing weary of hiring caregivers for my grandparents and they wanted to put them in a nursing home and my grandparents had this beautiful apartment,

It was where we always gathered throughout my life.

I just could not imagine that happening.

So I moved in,

I dropped out of college and I stayed with them until they died.

My grandpa died first and he had what I would call an ecstatic death.

And when he was laying on his deathbed,

He did what many people do,

Which is he saw angels.

He reached up and he was in a state of bliss.

And my aunts and uncles were there and they were like kind of thanking me for intervening because this outcome of the latter part of their lives was probably different than it could have been if they were in a nursing home.

I don't know.

But anyway,

He was obviously in the presence of something that was palpable in the room.

I couldn't see anything,

But I could feel that there was something there.

And so he showed me this is a real thing.

And so I was exhausted because I was up for many,

Many nights with him.

But I still just was changed from that.

My grandmother lived on for two more years and she lived to be 105.

And then she also had a very interesting death.

And the deaths were the thing that really I had no idea.

I had never experienced anything like that.

I was only in my late 20s.

And so to me,

That was really how I tasted the divine was the moment of their leaving.

My grandmother,

She was a very independent woman.

Well,

She was talking to these visitors before she died,

Which also is very common when people do that.

And one night she was talking so loud and I was in the next room and I said,

Hey,

Grandma,

Do you think you could talk to your friends tomorrow?

And she just looked at me like,

What?

No.

And she was showing me this is a way that our people come to get us and take us home.

And so my sister came over to visit me and my grandma and my sister is named after my grandma.

And I think there was some kind of link with that because she would often say,

Where's Anne?

Where's Anne?

And I was like,

Hey,

What about me?

What am I?

Chopped liver.

So Anne came over and we walked back to my grandmother's room and she was dying.

She had pneumonia.

And we kneeled down on either side of the bed and we were holding hands over my grandmother's heart.

And she took her last breath,

Like right in that moment that my sister came to visit.

We could feel her spirit float up through our hands and we were looking at each other.

It was so,

So stuff like that,

You know,

That you just can't,

You just don't know how that happens.

But it is a phenomenon.

And I think only when you experience it so closely,

Do you really,

I mean,

I don't know if I would have believed it myself.

My mom also,

When she died,

I'd been with her for a couple of years,

Living in this retirement home with her.

And she did have dementia,

But she was lucky because she didn't forget who we were and stuff like that.

She just,

She was 99 when she died.

And about a month before she started talking to her visitors.

And I knew then because I had been with my grandmother and I'd been through it before.

I thought,

Oh,

Wow,

Like this is,

She's actually,

It's finally happening.

She's finally telling me she's getting ready.

And one night she had an eight hour conversation with these spirits.

And I went into her room and lay down next to her.

I thought,

Well,

I want to get in on the action.

I want to see if I can,

You know,

Talk to them too.

So I said something,

You know,

Trying to kind of get in on the deal.

And she turned to me and she said,

No,

Not you.

Like this is the world that I need to be in and you need to stay in this other world.

Like it was just a little break in that,

You know,

A little moment where she broke a character or something.

And she looked at me and she's like,

No,

Mayor,

You got to stay here.

So then she said,

Well,

The night went on all night,

But she said,

Well,

I brought my clothes for the wedding,

But I forgot my slip.

And I said,

Oh,

Gosh,

I,

That's so funny because I happened to bring an extra slip and you can borrow it if you want,

You know.

So she,

In her mind,

She was getting ready to go.

It's just so fascinating what happens to our mind and how we travel back in time.

I mean,

It's just like dreaming.

We don't know how we dream things.

But so anytime she would say,

You know,

I need some money or I need my clothes,

I'd be like,

Oh,

You know,

It's so funny.

I happen to have an extra check here.

So it was like just how to dance with this,

This dream she was in so that,

You know,

She could come back to a place of peace again.

And then also knowing like she's getting ready to leave and just the enormousness of what that means.

Also,

She saw an angel.

She said,

I was laying with her one night and she's,

This was after that first initial eight hour visit from all of her.

I imagine it must have been my,

All the relatives were there and they pierced through the veil and then they come in and,

And it's,

It's wild.

I mean,

It's like,

You think death is just going to be this kind of serene,

You know,

Like somber,

Serene,

But there's like so much going on.

Like,

So she's,

She's pointing up at something and she's gasping.

Like it's like,

Oh,

Look at that.

And I said,

What is it?

And she said,

It's an angel.

And I said,

Really,

What does she look like?

And she said,

Oh,

She's so beautiful.

You know,

And I'm looking at that,

I'm looking at the wall.

I'm like,

I don't see an angel,

But can I feel the angel?

Yes,

I can.

I can feel the angel.

You know,

She's just drenching in so much love that the love is just bursting through space.

The thing about that is so interesting to me is taking care of some,

An older person,

No matter how much you love them,

Is a huge burden.

It's so taxing.

It's like so draining.

But then if we only knew,

If I had only known,

Like,

But they're going to get this huge gift at the end that will change your life,

I wouldn't have fretted so much about the time and the hassle of taking care of her.

Just this year,

My brother died,

And I went to take care of him.

And then he gave me this gift,

Another thing where I,

If I had only known,

When I went down there,

You're going to experience so much love that you have no idea.

You know,

I was just like,

Oh my God,

How am I going to do this?

Well,

First of all,

When I was there for six weeks,

And he had quite advanced cancer,

He was a cop.

Previously,

He was a warrior,

So he was like,

Not going to give up.

And he had stopped speaking to anyone who thought any differently than that.

So he was like,

I had to play along with this kind of thing with him.

Like,

Yeah,

You're going to get better.

Yeah,

We're going to do this thing.

When I got there,

I started having deja vus,

Like all day long.

And I'd never been to Palm Springs before.

This is where he was living.

So that was interesting.

You know,

I was just like,

Wow,

This is kind of cool.

I feel like I've been here before.

And I feel like I've been here before.

Like all day long,

I've been here before.

He had a temper,

And he was powerful.

Like a lot of powerful people have edges,

I think,

Sometimes.

And he had edges,

And he didn't like his edges.

And he would,

Sometimes they'd come out at me,

You know,

I mean,

We're living together for six weeks,

So it's bound to happen.

But he would always say,

I'm so sorry.

So he really was essentially just an extremely good soul.

And then he would just thank me every day,

Like my mom did.

Every day,

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

And what would I do without you?

And it was so intimate.

With this one on,

We went to all these really brutal treatments for him.

We had to,

I mean,

He endured everything without flinching.

It was just intense.

Finally,

He just realized,

I can't do this anymore.

I have to let go.

And it became this,

Like all his edges just fell away.

And we spent several days with him just sort of giggling and in this bubble of love.

And it was quite,

I was just absolutely stricken with grief,

Like to the point where I could hardly breathe.

And my brother Tony and I,

We were there that last day in the house.

I think my sister had gone for a walk.

Mike's partner was at work and his best friend was gone.

So it was just my brother Tony and I.

And Tony decided we were just like climbing the walls because it's like when your brother's going to die,

Your sibling,

It's so,

It does something to your little constellation.

You're like,

Oh no,

A star is about to leave our constellation.

And it feels awful.

It feels like you're going to lose a limb or something.

It's just so painful.

So Tony,

Mike loved Frank Sinatra.

So Tony put Frank Sinatra on and we started dancing around the house.

And you know,

It was so irreverent.

Like I felt like,

Is this okay?

Like are we going to get,

You know,

In trouble from God?

Like is this,

Is this what you're supposed to do?

But we just were following our instincts and we're dancing around him and we were dancing around the house.

And all of a sudden this,

We looked out the window.

Well,

We saw things flying by out the window and a storm had broken out like a huge windstorm.

Palm fronds were flying by the window,

Leaves,

Branches.

And we went outside and my brother said,

It's like Harry Potter.

Like it's like,

This is so wild.

We knew then we both were in this,

We were in this godness place.

Like we were,

We just looked at each other and we thought this is no accident.

Like this is something,

This is kind of like Mike,

You know,

He was tempestuous.

He was stormy and in not in a bad way,

But in a wild,

Passionate way.

He loved to have all these energies,

All these projects going at once.

And he was,

He was the life of the party,

You know?

So the storm,

It was just so him.

So the storm kind of calmed down and everybody came back and he started to lose heat and it was finally happening.

And the playlist was still going.

We just didn't turn it off.

So there were just all these songs playing and we all gathered in and my sister came back.

His best friend came over.

His partner came home from work all at the same time.

And we're all around him.

And it was his little dogs were up on him,

On top of him.

And one of his dogs,

The little badass Chihuahua,

He was actually straggling his leg and his chest was up like he was like the guardian at the gate.

And he had never,

I mean,

He's never done anything like that before.

I never saw him do anything like that.

And everything was just so otherworldly and we're like singing the songs to him and he's not leaving.

And then a song after song and he's not leaving.

Well,

His favorite song was My Way.

He used to sing it all the time.

He's saying it in the shower.

He's saying it in the car.

He's saying it on tabletops.

He's like his song.

And then we all looked at each other and we realized,

Oh,

He's waiting for his.

Yeah,

Of course.

You know his song.

And so then it came on and the whole song went through and that's when he finally let go and we just were like,

No one will ever.

No one ever.

They're going to think we're making this up.

But he did wait for his song and it was beautiful.

It was really,

I couldn't imagine a more beautiful,

Love filled,

Love infused and of a very rich life and we all kind of finally dispersed and I made it like two steps over to the bed that was next to the hospital bed and I just collapsed on the bed and I started to weep and I just let myself weep.

I couldn't stop weeping and I was,

Felt like really something come through me like it was some kind of force that was so powerful that I just let it have me really.

I mean,

It was like I had to surrender over my control because it was taking me anyway.

And when I was crying,

When I felt like maybe I was keening,

You know,

These sounds were coming out of me that I had heard this term keening and I thought,

Wow,

I think I'm keening.

It was like I was burst into a million pieces and I just let it all happen and all the grief that I had had through my life when I lost my grandparents and whatever losses I'd had and my mother,

It just all came through and it just kept rolling through like a wave.

One interesting thing was I could hear my mother's voice in my own voice and when I was a little girl and she would cry,

I could hear that sound and feel her tears and I felt like her grief was rolling up out of me and it was,

It was okay with me.

That was the gift that I think was the most profound is to see what it is like to lose control and to let the grief be that wild.

And,

You know,

I couldn't do it when my mother died.

I had to get up and move out of the retirement home.

I couldn't do it when my grandparents died.

Everyone had came over and descended.

I didn't know how to let go.

That little pericardium was like,

Oh,

No,

No.

But when my brother died,

It was,

It's like I finally could and it really did change me,

You know,

And all those little phenomenal things that happened with the timing of his death and the storm and it just all showed me like we're held,

You know,

In some kind of force.

It's just that I don't know that we know how to open up and meet that unless something big is happening like that,

But it's always there.

It truly was like a soul assignment.

All of these,

I felt like the moment I was given the assignment,

I was like age of 99,

Like,

Okay,

You know,

Just you just drop everything and go and the wind is at your back and,

You know,

The hand of God is on my back and going,

We will hold you.

You're not alone.

This is a group effort.

And so,

You know,

There are signs that happen where I just felt like I knew I had help.

I'm writing a memoir about,

I'm trying to work through this,

A story and really it's a love story between my mom and I that I never would have seen coming a few years before,

But when you're with somebody in that way,

Same with my brother,

You just fall in love,

You know,

And my grandparents,

I was completely in love and love isn't just always romantic.

It can be intense with someone you maybe didn't even know or like very much,

But it's profound.

That's so beautiful.

I totally understand what you're saying about the soul assignments and the hand on your back.

I understand that it's almost like this appointment that you were supposed to keep since before you were born that you're supposed to show up for and you absolutely showed up every time.

I think that's so very interesting and it's so beautiful and no doubt that in those two and a half years,

Which were incredibly difficult,

As you said,

There were,

You know,

These probably moments of revelation and just deep connection.

I only say that because,

You know,

My mother worked in a retirement home slash nursing facility when I was a kid,

But she worked nights.

And so every once in a while we'd go,

You know,

As kids,

You go enough times and the same people are there for quite a while and you get to know them.

You get to know these other people and it becomes your own little village of just,

Hey,

How are you?

How are you doing?

What's going on?

You know,

And so I'm sure there was there were moments like that,

Too,

Of connection and,

You know,

Getting to know other people and all of that stuff.

In the end,

As a child,

I thought it was really beautiful.

And I just fell in love with with elderly people and senior citizens at that point.

I just thought it was they're just like the coolest people.

They have so much to tell,

So many stories to tell.

They're so interesting and they love having conversations.

So I don't know if you I'm putting that I'm not saying that's what you experienced,

But that's what I experienced as a child.

Well,

Yeah,

The retirement home is it is the last train.

They're on the last train and they know it.

They have each other's backs and they develop this very brave friendships because they have to.

And it's the unspoken like they don't go around saying,

Hey,

This is the last train.

It is just is the last train.

And it's it's sad.

I mean,

It's like they're all getting ready,

You know,

And they're helping each other.

They create that little community.

I was so grateful that my mom had friends.

I didn't know if she would,

Because when we first got there,

It was a little tough to make friends with her condition and forgetting things.

So so many things.

But she she did at the end.

I I was so grateful.

I had one more experience that I'll I'll share.

And it was she she had lost consciousness.

And and my sister came over to help move her to turn her because she was filling up with fluids and stuff.

And we had to keep moving her from side to side.

And and I was on one side of her and my sister was on the other and my my sister turned her and somehow I caught her and I didn't let go.

And I was on the bed with her and I just held her.

And then my you know,

I'm like,

OK,

I don't know what's going on,

But I'm not letting go.

And I don't want to let go.

And I need I need to hold her for me.

And I knew that she could also feel it.

She that's all she ever wanted was for people to hold her and hug her.

But we hadn't really done any like long hug like that.

Like I don't know,

You know,

We hugged,

But we didn't like hold each other.

So then just I'm just there holding her and this kind of foam is coming out of her mouth onto my hair.

And I'm thinking I don't even care.

I'm good with that.

I just want to I need to feel her heart next to my heart.

And and then my nephew arrived and he loved my grandma or he loved my mom.

And it was like we were all my sister and he and I were in this kind of holy moment.

And I just stayed with it.

And I kept thinking,

Is this OK?

I know this looks weird to everyone,

But it's just how it has to be.

And so finally,

You know,

I let go.

And but it was it was so helpful to me to have that moment of getting letting myself go past my mind,

You know,

And just let my spirit have this experience.

And I would just really recommend anyone do this with their loved one if they can,

If you can.

Of course,

Not everybody wants to do that.

We all have our ways,

But it's it helped me.

I think that's my point.

It helped me integrate this massive grief I had and and just say goodbye like it was what I needed.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Bite-Sized Blessings.

I need to thank my charming and intrepid guest,

Mary Suzanne Garvey,

For agreeing to appear on the show and for telling all of her mystical experiences and her family stories.

I need to thank the creators of the music used for this episode,

Joel Lupez,

Frank Schroeder,

Phat Sounds,

Music L Files and Sasha End.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at Bite-SizedBlessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to books,

Music,

Changemakers and playlists I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening and here's my one request.

Be like Mary Suzanne.

Be there for those you love.

Be there for them in whatever situation they find themselves.

Be of service.

Hold them.

Love them.

Be present.

Help them in any way you can.

And just that,

Right there,

That's going to be what changes this world.