Bertelstein Support Fund

From Georgia

"After a summer of confusing and seemingly disparate health challenges, On Aug. 30, George was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. He refused the treatment plans that were offered by our oncologist. 3 weeks later he is in hospice. From our point of view this is an extremely sudden circumstance we find ourselves in.

We are So grateful to feel so connected, so loving, so loved, so supported. We are So grateful for these many years of practice connecting generously and open-heartedly!

There is no greaterprivilege or honor than to relate kindly, lovingly, un-defensively with other human beings!

Your generous gestures and offering are incredibly appreciated and deeply felt.

We are setting up this Caring Bridge to honor everyone’s desire to be informed and our prayer to be helpable.

Our needs have been as hard to anticipate as George’s shifting bodily sensations. At this time, it has become clear that all of my physical, emotional, and spiritual resource be focused at home, on George, Josie and myself. I am pausing my work and ceremonies.

The most helpful thing is anything that allows me to not be running around and to lie down and hold his hand which is what he desires the most. It can feel like rocket science to get our life, which is predicated on me doing a million things, to run smoothly as I attempt to “not do.” I have reached out to local folks to run errands for us and will continue to do that. It is incredibly helpful, thanks for reaching out and offering.

We are taking each day, really each microscopic subset, as it comes.

We are having our feelings in real time to ever increasing degrees.

We are letting go of predictive thought to ever increasing degrees.

We are available for help and for miracles. We are getting a ton of both, and available for more!

Our emotions, like the Hokusai “Wave” that hangs above our bed, range from the greatest expansion and elation to the deepest grief.

Josie is happy at school and very integrated into what is happening here.

We have a lot of family coming for the next couple of weeks and a visit from a healer who has

had great success healing cancer!

George’s quote for the day to the Hospice Case Manager: “We aren’t hopeless people, we’re happy!”"

Every donation is a gift and deeply appreciated!

We will be posting more regular updates on the cambridge site