By Holly Fink

When I first decided to move to Asheville, I think maybe I had a kind of naive optimism about what it meant to provide care and support to those at the end of life. I’d experienced loss in violent and abrupt ways, and was drawn to the idea of intentional community in this lesser talked about time of our lives. Even so, when Nina moved in, I was so unprepared for the intense impact she had on me. She was a force. She made it impossible to remain removed from her and her experience. She drew me in immediately with her stories, the love she shared with her family and with us, and her fierce hugs. She was a small woman, and sick, so the first time I hugged her I was completely taken aback by how tightly she held on. We were standing in the bathroom, because she liked to run her hands under hot water. And Nina was talking. Talking about some of her current symptoms, some of her past doctors visits, and about her gratitude for our house. She was expressing to me and another member of the care team how impressed she was with our ability to intersect life and death so seamlessly into our day to day (I’m glad it seemed seamless to her). We went about our days, going to work in the morning, putting on or attending art shows, meeting friends for drinks, and then coming home and sitting with Nina in the evenings. She loved that life was carrying on around her as she was dying. After she reflected this all to me in the bathroom, we hugged for the first time. It wasn’t a side hug, or a brief hug, or a hug where you hold your hips away from the other person and delicately wrap your arms around just their shoulders. It was the kind of hug where our bodies were pressed so tightly I could feel her heartbeat. She held on. And we cried together a little, and I thanked her for sharing her gratitude, and she thanked me for being there. After that, hugging Nina became one of my favorite parts of the day. Even when she was days away from death, her hugs remained fierce.