Dr Anna Holmes
To be healed is to be made whole. This wholeness is not just about the body, but about the harmony of connections of body, mind, spirit and relationships that are part of each human person. Healing is not the same as cure. Cure is focused on returning the physical body to its proper functioning or removing causes of disease or dysfunction. It is not possible to cure chronic diseases or those who are dying.
Healing happens in the relationship between patient and carer. It is about trust, empathy, enabling hope and bearing witness to suffering. It is possible to be healed without being cured as well as to be cured without being healed.
Just on two years ago I got the phone call I didn’t want, that my dear friend Alison was close to passing away. Would I like to join her family sitting in vigil as she slept? Of course. That was hard to do, though, to walk into her bedroom and see her parents, her husband, her three children, a couple of other friends and a minister seated around her bed, all quietly focused on her. She lay curled up like a child, breathing deeply, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I didn’t know quite what to do. Conversation seemed inane. 
