Mary grew up on Campobello Island, one of nine in her graduating class, the daughter of a fisherman and a mother who managed the family business and later worked in a nursing home. A dual U.S-Canadian citizen since 2013, Mary devoted 47 and a half years to nursing, including decades in intensive care and hospice. She is a Reiki Master and hospice patient care volunteer who believes deeply in the healing power of presence, energy and compassionate accompaniment. A devoted night-sky watcher, Mary understands death not as something to be fixed, but something to be met. Just before turning 60, she fulfilled a lifelong wish by teaching herself to play the fiddle, learning entirely from videos in three months.
Let’s begin with your work as a nurse, which you did for nearly 48 years.
I started off working in the hospital in Machias and worked in the ICU. I also did helicopter transports from the ER and worked in the ER at night. I cut my teeth in nursing school, then went to Downeast Maine and loved it. For 25 years I worked there, but just before I left I was ready to step away from the intensity of the hospital and there was a hospice program there. I had taken care of a million people in death and dying, including my own family, so I went over and became a hospice nurse. I also became a hospice volunteer because I wanted to do a little of each.
As a nurse, I decided who would come to the house to take care of the patient. I’d admit them, bring in nurse’s aides, and call the volunteers. I organized all of that and loved it. My driving was to Calais, Milbridge, Cutler, and back. I would drive 100 miles a day and it was so much fun. I’d get an address, put it in my GPS, and off I’d go. I saw tons of wildlife, drove in storms, listened to books on tape.
After about five years, I moved to Ellsworth and wanted to go back to the ICU. From 2005 to 2019, I worked in the ICU and loved it. When I retired in 2019 and started redefining myself, I thought, “Well, I’m not ready for the nursing home yet. What do I want to do with my life?” Then COVID hit, so that took care of that. I stayed home and learned how to make sourdough bread, yogurt, and a few other things (laughs).
Finally, I saw in the Ellsworth American: Hospice Volunteer Training via Zoom. So I applied. One of the most important things I learned in the beginning is when you’re using Zoom, never look down because you’ll look like Mitch McConnell (laughs).
(laughing) That’s great advice.
Never, never, never!
After I finished the Zoom training and started having my first patients, it was so heartfelt because I was back, but without the big level of responsibility. I would go into the home, meet the family and the patient, and get to know them. I’d give them what I’ve always given, except minus morphine. It refilled my heart again.
After doing that for a few years, Kathy, the director of hospice, said, “We’re thinking of offering Reiki.” And I was like, “Oh, my other favorite thing!”
So Reiki was something you had already been pursuing prior to hospice?
Yes. Let’s go back a bit. When I was 40, my primary care provider said, “Mary, you need to have a mammogram. Just for a baseline.” I went in, and the x-ray guy came up to me and said, “Ms. Calder, you need to have a mastectomy. You have breast cancer in your right breast.” Baseline!
I had a biopsy followed by fifteen radiation treatments. I was still working, going back and forth: work, zap, work, zap. It kept my mind busy. I grew tired of all the chemicals around the time a friend said, “Why don’t you try Reiki?” I had no idea what it was, but after my first treatment I thought, “Shit, I wasted 40 years!” Then I had my first massage. Another wasted 40 years!
I started moving away from chemical stuff, even though I was still practicing and embraced things that helped me relax. After about a year of receiving Reiki, I became a Reiki I practitioner. I practiced on myself every morning. I’d wake up, feel grateful and give myself a treatment. Over time I did Reiki II and III and became a Master. It took me ten years. The most important part was giving energy to myself so I could be a better person to take care of others.
What were you getting from those early Reiki treatments that you had never experienced before?
I’ve always been a happy person. I start off happy every day, though I might get sucked dry by the end of the day. Cancer was tiring and there was a lot of worry, you know, “I hope it doesn’t come back.” monkey mind as I call it. Reiki calmed that down. I could feel it doing that. It made me take deeper breaths and realize this too I can handle.
One of my favorite sayings is “Every day is a gift.” That’s why we call it the ‘present’. If I start off every day that way, I’m fine with it passing. I’ve lived a tremendously wonderful life. I have no regrets, except Mitch McConnell face (laughs).
Reiki enriched my life. If you take care of yourself first, you can take care of others. Reiki lowers the temperature. It helps people who are anxious, in pain, or passing. It zooms up the energy forces so you feel more energetic, relaxed or accepting.
With hospice Reiki patients, we don’t always do all the chakras. Sometimes it’s a hand or shoulders. If someone doesn’t like being touched, you can hold your hands over them. The energy decides where it needs to go.
How do you introduce Reiki to people who may not understand it?
I explain what Reiki is and de-woo it. It’s not a religion or a cult. It’s using universal energy to calm you down, to take things down a notch so everything else can work better, whether you’re on chemotherapy or on your last breath. It helps patients and families relax.
Would you share a client story?
My first Reiki patient was an educated chemist living alone. She had caregivers three times a day and wanted to remain home. When I first met her, she was understandably stiff, a little bit like, “who are you and what are you here for? So, I just sat down and did what I’ve done with all my patients over fifty years, I started to ask her questions about her life, like what did you do for a living and where did you grow up? As soon as you give someone an outlet, it flows.
I offered Reiki and explained it. I just needed access to her shoulders and head. The cat stayed on her lap. During the treatment, she became more relaxed, as did the cat. When I finished, she said, “Oh my God. Thank you” Over time we started talking more and now we can’t shut up (laughs). I walk into someone’s room a stranger and leave a friend. That takes trust.
In your long history of caregiving, has your understanding of being a healing presence shifted or evolved in any way?
Mary: Yes and no. As I’ve gotten older and have come to offer different things, one thing that hasn’t changed is that I always present myself honestly and I think that diffuses a lot of stuff. And I try not to seem in control but to let people know that I’m only there for comfort. I think it’s what I’ve always stared with by not going in with attitude or high-energy activity. I go in by asking, “What do you want me to help you with?”
How do we de-mystify hospice so people enter sooner?
Doctors need to refer people earlier. Otherwise families feel remorse. Wouldn’t you rather have a friend than a stranger walk in at the crucial time near death? Hospice helps people to say what needs to be said, to write letters, make phone calls and say goodbye. Because, you know, we all have little monkeys.
This makes me think of Nearing Death Awareness and the visions and dreams people may experience at end of life that can offer closure or comfort and make dying more easeful. Have you experienced much of that in your time as a nurse or as a hospice worker?
People have shared dreams. My 108-year-old mother has talked about her sisters coming to “visit” some nights, so the nurses would bring extra pillows and blankets for them. It was all very sweet. But sometimes dreams are unresolved and come seeking resolution.
Making space for that seems vital.
Yes. Families are petrified. They don’t know what to do. In my profession, I’ve been at the side of births and the side of deaths and they need the same precious acceptance. And in the case of death, letting go with wonder. Death is okay. Let’s make it as easy as possible and celebrate it. I’ve participated in many celebrations of life at the bedside. To me, it’s better than a funeral, but people don’t realize they can do that.
You’ve dedicated an amazing amount of your life to helping people through your work. You’ve seen birth. You’ve seen sickness. You’ve seen recovery. And you’ve seen death. Were you always through that time consciously working on your relationship to death?
Mary: Having cancer was one of the best things that ever happened to me. At 40, you think you’re going to live forever. I’ve never been afraid of death. With cancer, it was about fighting it and then beating it, which helped me to realize that I need to appreciate more what’s here because at any time it can be taken. When being given choices now, I take them, like when I was given the choice to go to China, to go to Dubai, to South Korea. I was like, “Sure, I’m gonna go. I’ll find the money somehow.” Because I want to live until I die. And if I do end up in a nursing home, I’m going to have some good stories (laughs). Never will I say, “I wish I had …” But yes, cancer made me appreciate my life and my impending death whenever that time comes. Every day is a gift until you’re gone and then your life was a gift.
Do you practice Reiki every day?
Yes. I give myself a little Reiki every morning. I have a practice where I say, “Thank you, God and Goddesses” when I’m happy about something. I’m also a night sky watcher, which makes me aware that there’s more to this and I want to embrace it all. I think a lot of people who think that if they believe in something other than their childhood religion taught them that it’s not good, that it’s against religion. So with Reiki, I feel out the person, reminding them that there’s energy all around us. We’re living in a galaxy of multiples and we just have to bring in that healing energy without calling it something that’s religious because Reiki isn’t religious, it’s self-meditation. Our job as Reiki practitioners, isn’t about having the answers, but about offering presence, a calm presence, and touch. Reiki is touch.
I read somewhere recently that presence is three parts observation and one part action. At its core, presence is about noticing, about awareness. What would you say to that?
Right. Get a feel for the room before you jump in with your own agenda, and also make sure it’s not your agenda, it’s theirs, the patient’s or client’s. Every client you have will make you a stronger volunteer because you will learn from every one of them. Being with somebody who is dying is so scary for so many people because they always feel like if the circumstances were different they could do actually something: I could heat their home, I could buy them groceries, I could give them morphine, I could shovel the driveway, but when a person is dying, what do you give them? And the answer is simple: your presence. We look for something in our own mind of wanting to make it better or saving them somehow, but your presence is what does all that and it doesn’t have to come with verbiage. It comes with an open heart and a touch of the hand. It can be silent comfort.