Dewey and the Difference We Make

Dewey interrupted my thoughts and said, more cogently than I had heard him speak in some time, “Your coming in here makes half the difference. Maybe all the difference.” I thanked him for telling me, and silently promised, “Okay, Dewey, I’m with you until the end.”

On June 16, 2011 I began weekly Reiki sessions for a client who resided in an assisted living group home, his body and mind impaired by Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia. Our sessions would continue for almost seven years. As is typical of Lewy body, Dewey might be completely lucid during one visit and confused the next; however, during those early sessions he gave me feedback—sometimes in humorous ways. He commented that his muscles felt more relaxed and the spasms less pronounced after Reiki. After one session he told me that he felt “the same, but more so.” Another time he said he felt “kind of blah.” When I asked him to explain, he responded that he felt there was no difference in him and everything around him. I asked him if he meant that he felt like he was one with everything around him and he said, “Yes, I guess you could say that.” Another time his response was, “That was quite a workout. I feel like I’ve gone to another world.” He often asked if I were coming back “tomorrow.”

Dewey was moved to a memory care facility in 2012, and over the following years I witnessed a steady decline as disease increased its insidious foothold on his body and mind. He moved from walker to wheelchair to recumbent wheelchair. His ability to give feedback diminished, and I relied on caregivers’ comments that he was calmer, more relaxed, or seemed more content after a session. He sometimes became more alert and articulate as the session progressed, and one comment might be very clear in an otherwise garbled speech pattern. This happened during a session when I had one hand on his forehead and the other on the back of his neck, and he said, “You can just stay there forever.” More and more frequently, however, his conversation reflected an interior landscape that I could not decode.

By the close of 2014 Dewey was much less verbal. His body was not giving me the messages that typically come during Reiki sessions, and it did not seem to be responding to Reiki. Staff suggested he might be entering the final stages of life. Despite knowing that Reiki always makes a difference on some level, whether the client or practitioner is aware of it or not, I began to wonder if it might be time to discontinue treatments for Dewey. Most often Reiki is a benefit to a person’s last breath; however, I had worked with one terminally ill client who rejected Reiki as her body began to shut down in the final weeks of life. Her comment to me was, “I don’t want it anymore. It’s too powerful.” I wondered if this might be happening for Dewey. Was his body telling me it no longer wanted Reiki? In any case, were the sessions making enough difference to justify his daughter’s investment in my weekly visits?

One morning I began the session with these questions cycling through my mind. Dewey interrupted my thoughts and said, more cogently than I had heard him speak in some time, “Your coming in here makes half the difference. Maybe all the difference.” I thanked him for telling me, and silently promised, “Okay, Dewey, I’m with you until the end.”

I saw him for the last time a few days before he made his transition in the early hours of March 27, 2018. He had been severely impaired physically and cognitively for some time and was almost nonverbal. As I gazed into his eyes for a long moment at the end of that session, I saw absolute clarity there and knew—wordlessly, with absolute certainty—that this was goodbye and that he was thanking me. And I was thanking him. And both of us were thanking his daughter, Mi Ae, for the gift she had given us.

A highly intelligent, kind and gentle soul with an acerbic wit, Dewey endured the challenging hand life dealt him with patience and equanimity.  I am a better Reiki practitioner and a more compassionate human being because of him. He taught me not to question whether or not I am making a difference, but to recognize that I AM making a difference in every moment, no matter the life role I might be assuming at any given time. I strive to live accordingly.

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©2018 Marianne Streich, Reiki for Living. All rights reserved. For reposting permission, contact Marianne.

Marianne is a Seattle-Area Reiki Master Teacher and Practitioner. She is the author of Reiki: A Guide for the Practice of Levels I and II and a former editor, contributor, and columnist for Reiki News Magazine. See her current class schedule.