By KATE TALANO

Two years ago, I was gifted the honor of shepherding my grandfather through the thin yet boundless veil of this human experience and what lies beyond.

I had never experienced death in that form of intimacy before. I was not taught what to say, or what to do, yet I was following the intuitive acts rooted in breath. The years of caring for him with Alzheimer's had given us a deep bond. He had been declining for a few days prior--resisting, grasping. Slowly, his body was returning to the land. I watched, listened, and wrote. 

Early one morning, while everyone else in the home was sleeping, I went over and placed my forehead to his and said, “If there is one more thing to teach us, it’s that strength does not lie in persevering itself, but in the wisdom of knowing when to persevere and when to let go. Now I can imagine what you are going to do takes a lot of energy. So I am going to breathe with you, but it’s up to you if you’d like to stay or go.”

Then I took two deep breaths, harmonizing with his. 

We entered what I describe as ”the space between”—that liminal space beyond time, beyond words, beyond anything I had previously concretized in my mind. All was silence, light and love. Complete oneness. Peace showered my body and his as together we bore witness to his continuation. It was breathtaking. I saw us as our light bodies, not our human bodies. Never had I seen ultimate reality so clearly.

There was so much space and knowing found in the emptiness of that light and silence. I remember staring at myself in a mirror afterwards and smiling. I was not the self I had thought I was. It was in that moment with my grandfather when my purpose, my path in life became clear—to share the light, to heal, to support others on their paths to awakening to the beauty of our true nature. Destiny was not a destination, but a way of being.

In the weeks after his passing, everything I thought I understood felt upside down. What was happening? I had believed that awakening to the true mind meant finding a steady place to rest. But instead, I found myself lost in the very unknowing that awakening invites. There seemed to be a fine line between awakening and insanity, and I kept tripping over it. Yet deep within there was a quiet voice asking me to pause with kindness, gently let go, and surrender to not knowing without fear.

From that tender place, I made a series of spontaneous decisions that felt more like surrender than choice. I resigned from my job, packed up most of my belongings, tapered off the antidepressants I’d been on and off for ten years, and ended a relationship with a loving French man that had gently reached its natural end. I asked him to drop me off at the gates of a monastery in the south of France called Plum Village—a monastery I had serendipitously discovered a year earlier through a simple Google search for “Buddhist centers near me.”

I had discovered that Plum Village offered a long-term program in which lay practitioners could join the monastic community for the traditional three-month Rains Retreat and, if the fit felt right, stay on for nine months or more, living in service and deep practice alongside the monastics. I applied for the program late summer, and had received a notification that a spot had opened up, which I was able to accept.

There, I dedicated my time to both my ancestors and my future descendants. This body, this breath, this Earth-made flesh is not mine alone. It is borrowed bone and water, soil and sun shaped by generations before me, and destined to nourish life beyond me. I practiced not only for my own transformation, but for all who once moved through this matter, including my grandfather, and all who may one day be shaped from it.

What felt like falling apart was, in truth, falling together into the path, the practice, the community. I was entering “not knowing,” an awareness without solidity. In a future article, I will share how immersing myself in this community offered me steady ground beneath my feet, helping me unlearn what no longer served me and remember the way back to our true home.

Kate Talano first joined FCM in 2022 shortly after discovering Plum Village and attending a Wake Up retreat, but the seeds of mindfulness were planted in her much earlier by her elementary school counselor, Brandy Kidd, a longtime student of Fred and member of FCM who taught her how to tend to her “worry garden.” She spent a year from October 2023 to October 2024 living long-term in Lower Hamlet Monastery in Plum Village, France. After returning from Plum Village, she began teaching in the public schools in Maine, but soon moved back to Naples to be closer to her family. She teaches Deep Ecology to children and is writing a creative non-fiction memoir that offers a heartfelt invitation to meet life with curiosity, courage, and presence.