Meet Amy
Hi friends.
I’m so glad you’re here. I’d love to learn about what brought you to Passings (send me an email, if you’d like to share: amyagape@passings.us) I know some of you found us out of curiosity, others were propelled by necessity.
What eventually led me to Passings was desperation.
In 2000, my life was filled with creation. I was building a career I adored. As an archaeologist and academic, I spent my days either digging for treasure or talking to amazing people about fascinatingthings. I was also building a family I adored. I had taken a brief sabbatical from my job in academia to give birth to and spend time with my first child.
During that year of witnessing my son’s “firsts” (tooth, roll over, solid foods), I also began to experience my own “lasts” (birthday, picnic, walk outside). I had quickly become very ill with a rare heart and lung disease. The diagnosis was complicated, and by the time it arrived I was lying in a hospital bed, dying.
And I had no way to do that, to allow myself to die. Raised in a culture that privileges accumulation, creation, and everything new, I had never learned how to surrender. I did not know how to let go of the life that was quickly leaving my body.
I was blessed with a miracle surgery that pressed the pause button on my physical dying for a bit. And as soon as I had recovered from that operation, I began to find a way to allow myself to die. I sought information and inspiration, tools and teachings that would help me learn to let go -- of anything that was passing out of my life.
Two decades later, that little boy is no longer little. And he’s got a younger sister. I still live with a terminal diagnosis; sometimes I spend weeks in the Cardiac ICU, sometimes I have surgery. I have stumbled through the “put your affairs in order” conversation with many doctors over the years. So I’m still dying from that heart and lung condition.
I’ve also experienced many other types of deaths; it’s likely that you have as well -- deaths of relationships, jobs, and stages of life. I continue to learn how to let go of what is Passing.
I still search for treasure, but what I seek to unearth are: truth, inspiration, self-awareness, and love. I dig all over for them. I find them everywhere. And I still talk to amazing people about fascinating things.
You’re one of those people, and I look forward to our conversations.