Bringing Kindness Through Song to Those Facing Life's Thresholds with Kate Schuyler

End of Life Conversations

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Please note this content warning for the following episode. In this episode our friend Kate speaks about her experience with putting down a beloved horse. Please take care of yourselves.
Today we are excited to have a conversation with Kate Schuyler. She is an active student of life, self, and the heart, a mother, grandmother, partner, and loyal friend. She is a world traveler, a hiker, a backpacker, a community volunteer, a gardener, a poetry lover, and a musician and singer.
She has been a Licensed Massage Therapist since 1982, and a member of the Sufi Community since 1994. She has been singing with the Portland Threshold Singers, an affiliated chapter of Threshold Choir International, since June 2012, eleven and a half years ago.
We shared this poem -
AFTER YOU DIE
By Marva Lee Weigelt
Just so you know
after you die
I will not wonder
why you didn’t do
your dishes or
how long it’s been
since you
cleaned your
oven or microwave or
mopped your floors
or why there were
dust bunnies under
the bed and
behind the door
After you’re gone
I will not wonder
how you could
have allowed the
piles of old mail to
accumulate or
why you saved so
many bits and pieces
of this and that or
why you weren’t
more goal-oriented and
well-organized or
why your refrigerator
contained so many
expired condiments
When you are
absent from all your
familiar places
I vow to avoid wondering
why you didn’t
eat less and
exercise more or
why you waited so
long to stop smoking
or drinking or
whatever else was
simultaneously
soothing and
deadly or
why you took
whatever risk may
seem to have hastened
your exit or why
you left so much unsaid
unfinished or
unresolved
I will only wonder
if you knew how much
you mattered to me
just as you are
as you were when we
met in our temporary
human disguises and
laughed in the
dressing room of the
world at how funkily
our skin suits fit
at times
I will wonder and
hope you knew
you were beloved
I will wonder when
we last hugged
and whether you
felt how our
heartbeats
converged
and our bellies
bumped like boats
and then we
both sighed
******
At the end of this episode we share a sample of the beautiful music of the Threshold Singers.

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