It was 2014 and I was visiting my grandpa in the hospital in SW Ohio. He had recently been admitted due to several issues and was doing slowly better after having a feeding tube removed. My family was preparing to help him transition back home with my grandma and into a more supported way of living due to his new medical needs. And we all could feel the weight of just how much support he would need now. I walked into his room and my Mom and Grandma stood on the edges, informing me that he still couldn’t really talk as he just had his feeding tube removed and was fairly weak.

A sudden intuition took over me and I walked over to the edge of his bed and sat down. I sat patiently with him, trying to decipher the scribbled words he etched out on a small whiteboard my family had gotten him. I could feel the longing in his eyes as I tried to guess what he was communicating. First he tried various attempts at asking for more pain medicine, of which he had already had his max, and then asking for my younger cousin who he was close to, to be near. After some time of this he put the whiteboard down and that’s when I felt an even stronger pull to just hold his hands and arms and start massaging his forearms. He seemed to relax and feel relief as I sat with him and continued. This was probably the closest I had felt to him in years, especially after two strokes had changed his personality and he became grumpier and grumpier in his older age. I left feeling grateful to have gotten to connect with him in a deeper way while he was suffering. Unfortunately his health took a turn for the worst and he never made it out of the hospital, dying a week later. We all grieved and celebrated his life a few weeks later at his service.

Quite a few years passed and then in 2021 when I was deciding to go to massage school, I woke up one morning with this memory rushing to my mind, almost tugging at me. I was reminded just how impactful and connective this moment of touch with him felt in his last days. And I decided that one of my focuses of school would be to study this type of massage that seemed to be less common, but just as needed. I wanted to work in places where many people don’t receive compassionate, present touch and may be very lonely. Thus my focus began. After graduation I received more in depth training from the Daybreak Institute, an organization that specializes in Geriatric Massage training and all that it entails. This work also dovetails with end-of-life massage and this particular experience also brought me into desire with that work as well, no matter the age of clients.