SANCTUARY
  • Open Book
    • Featured Interviews >
      • ARCHIVES: 2023-2024 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2022 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2021 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2020 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2019 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2018 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2017 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2016 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
    • More Interviews >
      • Archives : Interviews 2022-2023
      • Archives: Interviews 2020-2021
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2019
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2018
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2017
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2016
    • Autism Awareness 2024 >
      • Autism Awareness 2023
      • Autism Awareness 2022
      • Autism Awareness 2021
      • Autism Awareness 2020
      • Autism Awareness 2019
      • Autism Awareness 2018
  • Blank Canvas
    • Featured Artists >
      • 2024 Featured Artist Updates
      • Featured Artists Archives: 2023-2024
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2022
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2021
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2020
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2019
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2018
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2017
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2016
    • Selected Works >
      • Art Times Library
    • CULTURE CRAWL >
      • Archives: Culture Crawl
    • 2024 Focus on Youth >
      • 2023 Focus on Youth
      • 2022 Focus on Youth
      • 2021 Focus on Youth
      • 2020 Focus on Youth
      • 2019 Focus on Youth
      • 2018 Focus on Youth
      • 2017 Focus on Youth
      • 2016 Focus on Youth
    • 2024 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives >
      • 2023 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2022 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2021 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2020 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2019 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2018 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2017 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
  • Body & Spirit
    • HEALTHY BODY >
      • Archives: Healthy Body
    • HEALTHY MIND >
      • Archives: Healthy Mind
    • Nutrition & Exercise >
      • LAURA'S CORNER TABLE
      • Archives: Nutrition & Exercise
    • Personal Safety >
      • Archives: Personal Safety
    • ALTERNATIVE THERAPY >
      • Archives: Alternative Therapy
    • NAVIGATING RELATIONSHIPS >
      • Archives: Navigating Relationships
  • INSPIRED LIFE
    • TRAVEL JOURNAL >
      • ARCHIVES: TRAVEL JOURNAL
    • YOUR MONEY & BUSINESS >
      • ARCHIVES: MONEY & BUSINESS
    • CAREER JOURNEY >
      • Archives: CAREER JOURNEY
    • SMART STEPS >
      • ARCHIVES: Smart Steps
    • TRAILBLAZERS >
      • ARCHIVES: Trailblazers
  • GUEST ROOM
    • Community Compass >
      • Annual Community Project
      • Reader Ramble
      • TEAM TALK
      • SPONSOR CORNER
    • ASK AN EXPERT >
      • ARCHIVES: ASK AN EXPERT
    • KINDNESS & KARMA ARCHIVES
    • We Hear You >
      • Celebrated Readers
      • TALKBACK
    • Book Giveaway 2024 >
      • Book Giveaway 2024 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2023 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2022 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2021 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2020 Winners' Circle
    • Submit Your Work
    • Surveys
  • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Sponsor Ad Packages
    • Meet Our Sponsors
    • Events-Services-Specials
    • Sanctuary Events
    • Coffee & Conversation
  • About
    • Myrna's Musings
    • Our Team
    • Support Us
    • CONTACT US
  • Store

Essays, Chapbooks, Contests...Etcetera

FAY L. LOOMIS:
​Writer, Poet & Lecturer

Amour Toujours
By Fay Loomis

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013, I went to see a matinee of the French film Amour at the Rosendale Theater, 24 minutes from my house in upstate New York.

I disappeared into Georges and Anne’s story of ageless love and timeless death, drowning in the grief of my husband Evarts' passing ten years before. I remembered the depletion from weeks of caretaking, the ocean of love that carried us through unknown waters.

His breaths became more strained that last night, and I placed drops of water in Evarts’ mouth and oiled his cracked lips. As daylight crept up behind the San Jacinto Mountains, I took a walk to refresh myself in the cool desert air.

When I opened the door and looked across the room, I knew he had gone. I stood by the hospital bed, and he gave out one last breath, one last goodbye. Just then the sun burst over his beloved Tahquitz Peak. A shaft of silver light fell on his forehead, creating a glow on his face, before passing down his body and out his feet.

Slipping into a spontaneous ritual, I lit a white candle and played Mozart’s Requiem, while bathing his body. My hands found the texts which would help perform simple last rites from Christian, Buddhist, and Tibetan traditions.

The film scene where Georges laid out Anne, flowers strewn about her beautifully dressed body, completed the time warp back to Evarts’ passing.

I had no recollection of leaving the theater, until I was jerked from this reverie by the sight of a car at a stoplight. I knew I was going to barrel into it and kill someone. I slammed on the brakes, veered to the right, and heard a loud noise, as the car hit something and stopped, inches from a concrete lamp post.

I sat for a moment, caught between the two worlds, before getting out of my car and discovering that the right tire had exploded upon hitting the curb. The rim of the tire made a loud clunking sound, as I pulled into a parking lot, another reminder that I had come back into the present moment.

I could have joined Evarts in that space without time. Perhaps that was my unconscious wish. I am glad I decided to stay, because I have gone beyond where I thought I could go, just as Evarts encouraged me to do when he was alive.

I had met Evarts when I went to Meadowlark, his holistic medical retreat center in California, after returning from two months in Indonesia, inexplicably ill. After a consultation, he invited me to see his homeopathic pharmacy. We walked down the path, arms around each other’s waists, as if we had forever known one another.

A year later we walked down a rocky mountain path into a cathedral of trees where we were married. We lectured, wrote, and counselled on holistic medicine for the last twelve years of his life—something I never imagined I could or would do.

Evarts was my rock. After he died, I was adrift. The near-collision invited me to once more be inspired by the way he leaned courageously into life and graciously embraced death when the invitation arrived. I was able to open up to words from former Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld, a philosophy that Evarts often shared. “For all that has been, thanks. For all that is to come, yes!”

Fay L. Loomis lives in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. She moved from California to the area after the death of her husband Evarts G. Loomis, M.D., the Father of Holistic Medicine.

Evarts and Fay lectured, wrote, and counseled together, travelling in the US, UK, Europe, and India. While in India, they were asked to serve on the advisory boards for the Indian Holistic Medical Society and the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine.
Fay and two women initiated the Holistic Health Community which has been offering free health days, lectures and other events in the Mid-Hudson Region for the past nine years. A year later, she started the Mid-Hudson Fuel Buying Co-op which has surpassed 1500 members. Both endeavors were inspired by the Transition Movement.

Slowed down by a stroke and the pandemic, Fay spent the winter glued to her computer. Payoff: acceptance of nearly a dozen pieces of poetry and prose in the first three months of 2021.

Last summer, she once more walked on a private gravel road, with the aid of strategically placed chairs. Prior to the stroke she trekked daily (six-tenths of a mile round trip) to pick up her mail. She made it once to the mailbox and hopes to repeat that feat this year.

A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and Rat’s Ass Review Workshop, Fay’s pieces  appear or are forthcoming in Peacock Journal, Postcard Poems and Prose, Watershed Review, River Poets Journal, Breath and Shadow, The Closed Eye Open, Love Me, Love My Belly, Rat’s Ass Review, Ruminate Magazine, HerStry,  Burrow, Amethyst Review, Covid and Poetry Project,  Al-Khemica Poetica, Bluepepper, and Sledgehammer Lit.
Picture

​Follow Fay on:​
FACEBOOK 

​NEWS...

May Themes:
Motherhood/Grandmotherhood
Collaboration


Next Community Compass/Corresponding E-newsletter publishes:
Mid-June
​
Coffee & Conversation Play List


Next Coffee & Conversation Show (May):
"Imposter Syndrome"
Picture
SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS:
Let us know what you would like
to see and read about in SANCTUARY.
[email protected]
MERCH STORE
Picture
Support Us
Please LIKE us and FOLLOW us!
USE:
#WheresYourSanctuary
SEND US A GOOGLE REVIEW!

© 2025 Sanctuary Online, LLC
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
​Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily the opinion of this publication.
  • Open Book
    • Featured Interviews >
      • ARCHIVES: 2023-2024 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2022 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2021 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2020 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2019 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2018 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2017 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
      • ARCHIVES: 2016 FEATURED INTERVIEWS
    • More Interviews >
      • Archives : Interviews 2022-2023
      • Archives: Interviews 2020-2021
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2019
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2018
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2017
      • ARCHIVES: Interviews 2016
    • Autism Awareness 2024 >
      • Autism Awareness 2023
      • Autism Awareness 2022
      • Autism Awareness 2021
      • Autism Awareness 2020
      • Autism Awareness 2019
      • Autism Awareness 2018
  • Blank Canvas
    • Featured Artists >
      • 2024 Featured Artist Updates
      • Featured Artists Archives: 2023-2024
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2022
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2021
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2020
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2019
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2018
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2017
      • Featured Artist Archives: 2016
    • Selected Works >
      • Art Times Library
    • CULTURE CRAWL >
      • Archives: Culture Crawl
    • 2024 Focus on Youth >
      • 2023 Focus on Youth
      • 2022 Focus on Youth
      • 2021 Focus on Youth
      • 2020 Focus on Youth
      • 2019 Focus on Youth
      • 2018 Focus on Youth
      • 2017 Focus on Youth
      • 2016 Focus on Youth
    • 2024 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives >
      • 2023 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2022 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2021 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2020 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2019 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2018 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
      • 2017 Celebrating the Men in Our Lives
  • Body & Spirit
    • HEALTHY BODY >
      • Archives: Healthy Body
    • HEALTHY MIND >
      • Archives: Healthy Mind
    • Nutrition & Exercise >
      • LAURA'S CORNER TABLE
      • Archives: Nutrition & Exercise
    • Personal Safety >
      • Archives: Personal Safety
    • ALTERNATIVE THERAPY >
      • Archives: Alternative Therapy
    • NAVIGATING RELATIONSHIPS >
      • Archives: Navigating Relationships
  • INSPIRED LIFE
    • TRAVEL JOURNAL >
      • ARCHIVES: TRAVEL JOURNAL
    • YOUR MONEY & BUSINESS >
      • ARCHIVES: MONEY & BUSINESS
    • CAREER JOURNEY >
      • Archives: CAREER JOURNEY
    • SMART STEPS >
      • ARCHIVES: Smart Steps
    • TRAILBLAZERS >
      • ARCHIVES: Trailblazers
  • GUEST ROOM
    • Community Compass >
      • Annual Community Project
      • Reader Ramble
      • TEAM TALK
      • SPONSOR CORNER
    • ASK AN EXPERT >
      • ARCHIVES: ASK AN EXPERT
    • KINDNESS & KARMA ARCHIVES
    • We Hear You >
      • Celebrated Readers
      • TALKBACK
    • Book Giveaway 2024 >
      • Book Giveaway 2024 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2023 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2022 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2021 Winners' Circle
      • Book Giveaway 2020 Winners' Circle
    • Submit Your Work
    • Surveys
  • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Sponsor Ad Packages
    • Meet Our Sponsors
    • Events-Services-Specials
    • Sanctuary Events
    • Coffee & Conversation
  • About
    • Myrna's Musings
    • Our Team
    • Support Us
    • CONTACT US
  • Store