When a Healer Dies.

I was as shocked and stunned as the rest of the world, at the news of Jess Ainscough’s passing last week.

Although I did not know her personally, the news of her death hit me like a ton of bricks in my chest. She was only 30, after all!

I have been following Jess’s blog and videos, since she first started doing them eight years ago, and I’ve always felt a certain kinship with her, because of her insatiable passion to heal cancer, in herself and others, no matter what the cost. Whenever I watched her videos, I would instantly feel lifted and inspired to keep living, loving, teaching, and healing, in my own journey to health.

Plus, she did coffee enemas five times a day! That made her an instant hero, in my eyes. She was willing to do something radical that most people are not willing to do, because she was determined to heal, without drugs and surgery.

And can you blame her?? At the time of her diagnosis, her only option from the doctors had been to amputate her entire arm, all the way up to her shoulder!

Now, I don’t know about you but that would definitely be enough to make me seek out some other options, and that’s what Jess did. She found a clinic in Mexico, that has been treating cancer patients (and may I say, quite successfully?!) with enemas, raw food, and vegetable juices for many years.

So she committed to the program. And knowing what I know, I would have done the same.

Now, here’s the tricky part:

She died! All the carrot juice and coffee enemas could not keep her alive and she, like my dad, eventually lost her battle. In spite of her determination and staggering efforts, she died anyway.

Or at least that’s what the critics say.

The ones who, in recent years, have shamed and stomped on her like an angry bull, crushing anything that gets in its way. The ones who blamed her for her own Mother’s death, when she had decided to follow the same protocol as Jess. I’ve visited her blog and read the comments. I’ve seen the hate mail from other bloggers. And let me warn you, it’s not pretty.

One blogger even went so far as to say that Jess had been “hiding her arm” from the public, because it was obviously rotting and disintegrating from the cancer. She said that it was obvious that Jess was going to die.

And you know what? She did. Eight years after she was diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma, Jess Ainscough died! The critics were right. Natural medicine is useless, and the Gerson therapy doesn’t work.

Or are they?

Perhaps we need a little perspective.

The fact is, every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans die while undergoing chemo and radiation. Hundreds more die while in surgery, or in the weeks thereafter. This is nothing new!

People of all kinds of cancer have died while doing all kinds of treatment.

Why then is it such a problem when someone chooses a less harmful, invasive path to their healing, or what they believe to be a more peaceful, more capable way to live and die with cancer?

Why then are we so hostile toward a young girl for simply choosing a more natural way, and writing about how good she felt, by making that decision?

I say, let her! Let her live and die in the way that she knew best, and honor the life she had! And let us honor the years and the peace and the memories she may have gained, by choosing what felt right to her!

I believe Jess Ainscough led a beautiful and painful life, and one that I will not soon forget. Yes, she had cancer, and yes, she WAS dying, but she was also living and thriving!

Yes, she was sick, but that didn’t stop her from reaching out to her readers with vulnerability, and responding to her critics with kindness.

Cancer didn’t keep her from offering her gifts, even when it snuffed out her own Mother.

And that takes a special kind of humanity. A rare grace. And a courage that I can only dream of.

It takes courage to tell your story to anyone, much less to perfect strangers, knowing that you could be judged, or even attacked for your choices. It takes courage to let people see your pain, while still believing in yours and their healing.

And for that, she was, and will always be my hero. She will always be the woman that inspired me to follow my heart and not to stop until I had found my own healing. To keep sharing my gifts with the world, even when the world doesn’t appreciate or understand them.

And so, let the critics say what they want.

I say it takes an extreme amount of humility, grace, and courage to live the life that Jess lived. It takes an enormously gracious spirit to inspire hope in others, while you yourself are dying.

It takes a huge heart, that of a true healer, to heal the world of its harsh reasonings and rationalities by continuing to offer it kindness.

One that quite honestly, I don’t think I have, and I wonder if any of her opposers would have had.

Jason Wachob from MindBodyGreen, wrote these words about Jess, in a deeply moving blog post, on Friday.

“Sometimes terrible things happen to amazing people and there are no good answers. This is one of those times.”

I don’t know why we are so quick to judge a young girl who’s doing her best to thrive, while she’s dying. I don’t know why we care so much when someone we don’t even know, opts for coffee enemas, instead of having her arm cut off.

I just know that it takes purpose and gut-wrenching courage to do what Jess Ainscough did. And unfortunately, healers die, too.

May we honor them by asking our questions gently, living our lives fully, and always, ALWAYS following our passion and seeking our own healing, no matter what the outcome.