Bless This Body

I was very touched by being with a deceased patient while the nurses prepared her body last week.  But I searched for something appropriate to say or pray (she was Jewish and I’d already said the 23^rd Psalm.)  Similarly, when I was visiting my homecare patient who has no religious tradition, I wanted a longer ritual for massaging her hands and brushing her hair.  I started reflecting on a blessing for bodies that could be used both before and after death, the very physical bodies that are suffering and dying but had once been full of life.  I thought on the blessing of the hands that I knew from my last hospice position, and then searched online.  There are several variations of blessings of the physical body from the body-washing rituals of Judaism and Islam.  I also found a Wiccan variant.

Here is mine; it is not a poem with a final version but a draft always in progress.  Adapt based on the person; adjust to present tense for the living, past for the deceased.  For a less pagan version, I might adjust “blessed be” to “I bless”; you might even say “thank you for” or “we are grateful for.”

Bless This Body

Blessed be your hair that has felt the touch of wind and rain;

Blessed be your head, where dreams were made and memories cherished;

Blessed be your eyes, that have seen beauty and sorrow;

Blessed be your ears that listened to laughter and cries, music and silence; 

Blessed be your lips that have kissed loved ones good night;

Blessed be your shoulders that have carried children and burdens;

Blessed be your arms that have wrapped us in your love;

Blessed be your hands that have worked and strained, tickled and touched, created and cared;

Blessed be your heart that beat in time to the joys and sorrows of this world;

Blessed be your lungs that gave breath to your voice;

Blessed be your skin that has glowed in the warmth of the sun;

Blessed be your legs that stood proud;

Blessed be your knees that have knelt in wonder—at a child, at a flower, in prayer;

Blessed be your feet that carried you on your own path through life.

Blessed be this body, this person, our loved one.

Blessed be.