Mandy Meyer-Hill is a massage therapist, she is important to me and to my life. I did not know her four years ago, and before that, I never went to get a message, never saw a massage therapist. I thought it was a strange thing, it seemed too intimate for me to take my clothes off in front of a stranger who would touch me. I was afraid of it, as I was of any kind of intimacy or closeness, physical or emotional.

I see Mandy almost every week now, she is a close friend of mine and one of Maria’s closest friends. Mandy is a healer, before each massage she sits down and talks with me, she gets a sense of who I am at that moment and what I need. I see that I was completely wrong about massage, it is a powerful healing tool, and massage therapists, like social workers, are professional, well-trained and with a keen sense of the body and the soul.

When I went to see Mandy, I brought so much anger and panic with me, so much of it is gone now, perhaps massaged out of me.

A doctor asked me what was the most powerful healing experience I had received after my open heart surgery, and I said without any hesitation that it was the massage and energy work that Mandy did with me in the weeks after the operation. She insisted on coming to the house. I was exhausted and in considerable pain, and I sat in a bit reclining chair. My memory of that time is hazy, and but I was especially exhausted in the afternoons. Mandy would come in and work with my legs, then my arms and chest, she did energy work and I remember falling into the deepest sleep, and the most relaxed and restful state. She was always gone when I woke up, yet the experience of being healed was palpable.

I truly rested in those sessions, healed, felt my energy and sense of self returning, it was the most deeply restful experience of my life, I think, and rest was what I desperately needed.

I am a diabetic, that is a circulation disease, and massage is strongly recommended for diabetics, there is little, apart from exercise, that helps the circulation of one’s body more. Now, with the heart surgery, this is even more important to me. I am going almost every week, Mandy let’s me know when an opening arises, I bring Red. It was Mandy who drove to Virginia with her daughter Marleigh to pick Red up from Dr. Karen Thompson, he practically melts into the ground when he sees her. This is one of the many connections I have with Mandy, who sometimes comes to the farmhouse with soup and salad to sit up into the night and talk with us.

Red lies down on the floor and is still, he enters the spirit of massage, as he enters the spirit of every place he is. Mandy always has a bowl of water for him on the floor.

Mandy is a healer, the kind of healer who works very hard, but doesn’t work for the money, or make a lot of money, I imagine. She is drawn to helping people, soothing body and soul. Massage, I have learned, is a powerful spiritual as well as physical experience. I almost never an more at peace than I am on her heated table, I go to some other place, it is quiet and safe – and yes, healing – there. When I leave, I am rested, at peace, those massages made such an enormous difference to me. I appreciate Mandy’s doing something medical healers rarely get to do anymore – talk to me. We always talk, she always wants to figure out what I need, even when I often do not know.

Today I went to see my nurse practitioner, and she gave me a superhero “Captain America” sticker because I was doing so well with my heart.

But there are, of course, other post-surgery things to deal with. My diabetes is not yet back to normal and under full control, I have issues with fluid and some other things to deal with.  More doctors, more tests, more pills. I will not waver, I will get there. I felt a bit overwhelmed and discouraged, I always think it is over, it is never, of course, over. I came into Mandy’s office and she looked at me and said, “well you look a little overwhelmed today, let’s take care of that, let’s do some massage and energy work.” I started to say I was fine, then dropped it. It is nice to be known by a healer who cares. It is, well, healing.