Writer Lindsay Kyte profiles five people who offer Buddhist wisdom to people who are dying and those close to them.
“The birth of so much love happened right at death,” says Alexandra Gersten-–Vassilaros, a playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist. By virtue of her profession, she was especially sensitive to not having the right words to express what was happening when her husband, John, was dying of colon cancer in 2015. Their three sons, aged fourteen, eighteen, and nineteen, were looking to her for guidance. But no one wanted to mention the “d-word.”
“We didn’t want to approach it,” she says, “because John wasn’t approaching it. We were all holding on; we were resisting. John felt so guilty to be that sick. He’d always been such a hero, and now he was leaving his family and his boys.”
A friend suggested that Gersten–Vassilaros contact Chodo. Although she was initially resistant, she was exhausted, frightened, and yearning for someone to lead them through these unknown waters. Though not a practicing Buddhist, Gersten–Vassilaros reached out to him. “The minute I met Chodo, I felt infinitely safe and provided for. I knew that his gentleness and strength were exactly what my husband would respond to,” she says…