3 posts tagged “dying”
There are some days that live in your mind clear as a bell. For a lot of people, in North America, that day is September 11, 2001. Almost all those people’s memories are about the terrorist attacks in America that fateful morning. My memory of that day wasn’t about planes or terrorism, at least not on the forefront. I remember that day, clear as a bell, because it’s the day my mom died.
I rode the train into work that morning, per usual. I was totally clueless as to what was just occurring in the US as I had my CD player on. I turned my player off just as the train was hitting the downtown tunnel and I heard the radio mention something about a plane running into the World Trade Centre just before the train entered the tunnel and the radio signal was lost. I quickly ran to my office to find out more about what I had just heard on the radio.
While we were trying to find out more info, my desk phone rang. It was my sister. Sometime was up with Mom, who was back in the hospital since the previous day. She told me that the hospital had called early and our Dad was at the hospital. My sister wanted me to find out what was going on since the hospital was near my work and she lived just over 1 hour away.
My Mom had recently been re-admitted, a few days previously, to the hospital due to another infection. She had spent the good part of that year in the hospital due to her deteriorating condition. Her kidney disease was wreaking havoc all over her body. And for most of that time, she wasn’t even aware of what was going on. We had been thinking she would never come home from the hospital. But she did recover, and had been home for a couple of months when infection hit again. This infection was not happy news as that meant she would be put on hemo-dialysis which to her was a death sentence. She was happy on peritoneal dialysis because that meant she wasn’t tied down and she could travel. Because of this fear of the hemo-dialysis, my dad practically had to force her back into the hospital even though she had an infection that needed treating.
I decided to call the hospital and see if I could find out what was going. I was able to get put through to my mother’s ward and was able to speak to the doctor on duty. I remember her telling me a bunch of doctor/medical speak. The only phrase that stood out, like it was a neon sign, was “loss of brain stem reflex”.
I remember hearing that and the whole world felt like it went silent.
Do you ever ask questions that you already know the answer to but you hope that you get a different answer?
In almost surreal fashion, even at the time it was happening, I remember myself asking the doctor, point blank, that doesn’t loss of brain stem reflex mean the same thing as brain dead. She hesitated but answered the question with a yes.
In a fog, I called my sister and told her to get her ass down to the hospital. I said “no brain stem reflex” and she said “I’m on my way”.
My hubby picked me up and we went to the hospital together. It was near my office, but I couldn’t go alone. I remember the hospital parking lot being full so we parked on the street. What we didn’t know or even pay attention to, when we parked on the street, is that we would be there all day and our car would end up getting towed because the street we parked on had no parking during rush hour. Who thinks about their car when they are in an emergency situation?
I remember being at the hospital before any of my siblings and being there with my father and our family priest (he married my parents and they were long time friends) as we stood around my Mom’s hospital bed in ICU. I remember our priest giving my mother the last rites (for the 3rd or 4th time that year…you can never be too careful) and his old,frail, arthritic hands shaking so much that I ended up holding his bible for him so he could read the passages and do the oil sacrament, without much trouble. This made me feel useful for a few minutes.
I remember when everyone finally arrived and we are all around the bed. I remember sitting there holding my Mom’s hand and not really noticing anyone else in the room. It was surreal. As I held her hand, I swear I could hear her laughing. Not a mocking laugh, but a laugh of joy. I heard her voice saying, “Don’t worry about me. I am fine. I am free now.” It was weird…but it was all I could do to not smile sitting there holding her hand. It was like she had the last laugh, which was so like her.
The doctors talked to us all together in a meeting room. They wanted to talk to us about our “options”. They had her on a ventilator and they could keep her there for as long as we wanted. There was very little chance of her reviving. Ha! I wanted to laugh. Brain dead is dead. Why couldn’t they just say that? But I could see that not all my siblings and my dad were quite ready for my simplistic view on things…so I stayed quiet. They were still trying to process that my mom was doing fine up to a few days ago when she got an infection and then today she just stopped breathing and had to be put on a ventilator.
A ventilator keeps the body functioning, even if the brain is not functioning. As long as oxygen is pumping through, the heart keeps going. And as long as your heart is beating, you are considering “alive”. Turn off the ventilator, on someone whose brain is not functioning, and the heart winds down like a watch….until it beats no more.
I remember we all hung out together all through the afternoon and put off the inevitable. We all knew and agreed that the ventilator needed to be shut off….but not yet.
That afternoon, we just hung out, got some food, rescued our car, sat in the hospital’s rooftop garden, watched my brother’s kids play in the garden pond, talked about other things, and sometimes just sat in silence.
My brother’s kids were my parents only grandkids at this time. They were 5 and 3 at this time, and they had spent almost everyday of their lives with their grandparents. My Mom was a very big part of their lives. They knew my Mom was sick and had watched her get sicker and they had handled it well.
My brother and SIL debated over whether to bring the kids in to say good-bye to their Grandma. They even talked to a hospital counselor that afternoon about it. And, at the end of it all, they decided to have the kids say good-bye. They were told that Grandma was going to heaven and she was going to be with Jesus. And the kids handled it well…..they said good-bye but it wasn’t a big deal to them as they were still a bit young to understand the finality of it. Afterall, Grandma just looked like she was sleeping.
At 7:00pm, we gathered in a private room at the very far end of ICU. We all held hands around my Mom’s bed as the priest said some last prayers and the most wonderful nurse, Patrick, turned off my Mom’s ventilator. We all said our final good-byes and kissed my mom one last time.
I remember my Dad holding my Mom’s hand until the very last heartbeat.
As we left the room, my brother’s 5 year old daughter asked if they could go visit Grandma in heaven. Very gently, my SIL explained that no, they were not going to be able to visit Grandma. It was then that my niece understood the finality of the situation and let out the most sorrowful moans of pain as she cried on my SIL’s shoulder as we walked the length of the corridor that led out of ICU.
All the doctors and nurses, in the ICU, stood up, came to the windows, and watched us leave the ward. They all had tears streaming down their faces as they watched the group of us leave. It’s an image that I doubt I will ever forget.
Its been six years, Mom, and I will always miss you!
I am betting that heaven has never been so organized and that you are on all the committees.
Is Jesus a good dancer? I know you would know! :)
September 12, 1934 ~ September 11, 2001
“ Some people move our souls to dance.
They stay in our lives for awhile;
Leave footprints on our hearts,
……...And we are never the same. “
Its been a busy past week, so I want to apologize for being a bit off/up/down this last while. There is lots of family drama going on outside of the normal routine!
This may seem a bit disjointed and long…but I have to get it out of my brain so I can sleep! :)
First we have my brother and his family moving all the way across the country in a few weeks. This is huge for my family as we have always lived in the same area together….all our lives. My dad still lives in the same house that we grew up in. And most of our extended family lives in the area as well.
Some people are taking the move well and some aren’t. He is moving because of his job. He had a choice to go or not. But if he stayed here, he had to find another job because they were eliminating the position out here (he is a territory manager). By moving to the east he will get a promotion and more money, which is good. But moving away from all your family and friends is harder than one thinks!
My SIL has never even lived outside of the same 15 km radius she grew up in!!! But she is keen to move out east where housing prices are half of what they are here. She really wants to be able to afford to buy a house. But all her family and most of her friends are here. She is very close to my dad, her FIL. And she is very close to her own dad. And her mother has cancer and is dying. Decisions, decisions, decisions……….
My brother and his wife decided to move and see if they like it out east. Their kids are not exactly keen about the move, but when you are 9 and 11, you don’t have much choice! I am going to miss them all so much….we all are :( And right there is where some people are taking the move well and some aren’t.
I told my brother that if he feels that this is the best decision for them, then I totally support them. Its their life and they have to make their own decisions. Do I want them to move? No. But its their life to live. Unfortunately, not everyone feels this way…..some people don’t understand why they are moving and won’t support it until they understand and agree with it. This frustrates me! Why do some people think that others need their approval to live their lives? And, of course, all this discourse is adding to their stress of moving and moving away from loved ones. Family Drama 101: Trying to Live Your Own Life!!
And then today we had a memorial service for my husband’s Grandmother. She was 93 and for the past 3 years she didn’t even know who she was or who anyone else was and had no short term memory. (side note – I never want to get to that point so if I do, please just shoot me or wash my hair and put me out in the cold…or something….) But today we celebrated her life and remembered for her.
She lived a tough life during tough times of a tough era. Born at the beginning of the century – a child during the depression – she worked hard in Dawson Creek during tough times – married young to an older man – was widowed suddenly just before her 25th wedding anniversary – remarried and worked the farming life in Alberta – was widowed a second time just before her 25th wedding anniversary – fiercely independent and always believed in working hard – was a tough, tough critic but was always there when the chips were down.
I, personally, only knew her as a tough, cranky old bird! My husband said she was pretty much always like that. She wasn’t the warm and fuzzy type but she was a hard worker, very disciplined, and always did what she said she was going to do.
But it was something the pastor said today that really got me reflecting. He talked about how she was so many things through her life…..many things to many people. She was a baby, a toddler, a school girl, a school chum, a teenager, a young wife, a friend, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother….to name a few. It really made me think that so often we only think of people in the one-dimensional context of how we know them and often overlook all the other roles they play and have played. We are all many things to many people. I was suddenly thinking of everyone differently.
I thought of this again when my husband and I were chatting on the way home tonight. He said he was reflecting on how different the service today was compared to my own mother’s funeral almost 6 years ago. Today’s service was very small and intimate….and very short. (my in-laws are not religious people) By contrast, my mother’s funeral 6 years ago was attended by almost 800 people (there actually would have been more, believe it or not, as there were some people away, or unable to attend, or didn’t hear about it in time) and was longer as it was a funeral mass.
I have to admit I laughed when my husband made the comment about how different the 2 funerals were, especially in size. First and foremost, I told him, that his grandmother is now with most of her friends since a lot of them predeceased her! (they are playing bridge right now! Lol!) She was 93, after all! And their family is pretty small. And she only moved to this area when she was unable to no longer take care of herself and my husband’s mother wanted her closeby. This means that a lot of people she knew, in the past, were from far, far away from here, if they were even still alive.
I then made the point to my husband that when my mother passed away, she was much younger than my husband’s Grandmother. This meant that most of her friends were still alive! My mom was a teacher and had been a teacher for most of her adult life….so that also counted for some big numbers. And we have a large family!
I concluded my point in saying that just because the sizes of these 2 funerals were drastically different did not mean anything. 2 different women at 2 different stages in their lives. It did not mean one was less and one was more. Just as the pastor said today, they were both many different things to many different people. They both affected and influenced many lives in many different ways.
And in taking that thought further………… its not how we begin our lives or even how we end our lives that is so important……it’s how we live the middle part. The middle part, between being born and dying, is where we do the living – where we make our choices – where we make out stands - where we play all our different roles – and is the legacy we leave and is what we are remembered for..... when the time comes for the people we love to celebrate our lives.
Linda British literally gave herself away. Linda was an outstanding teacher who felt that if she had the time, she would like to create great art and poetry. When she was 28, however, she began to get severe headaches. Her doctors discovered that she had an enormous brain tumour. They told her that her chances of surviving an operation were about 2 percent. Therefore, rather than operate immediately, they chose to wait for six months.
She knew she had great artistry in her. So during those six months she wrote and drew feverishly. All of her poetry, except one piece, was published in magazines. All of her art, except one piece, was shown and sold at some of the leading galleries.
At the end of six months, she had the operation. The night before the operation, she decided to literally give herself away. In the case of her death, she wrote a "will" in which she donated all of her body parts to those who needed them more than she would.
Unfortunately, Linda's operation was fatal. Subsequently, her eyes went to an eye bank in Bethesda, Maryland, and from there to a recipient in North Carolina. A young man, age 28, went from darkness to sight. That young man was so profoundly grateful that he wrote to the eye bank thanking them for existing. It was only the second "thank you" that the eye bank had received after giving out in excess of 30,000 eyes!
Furthermore, he said he wanted to thank the parents of the donor. They must indeed be magnificent folks to have a child who would give away her eyes. He was given the name of the British family and he decided to fly in to see them on Staten Island. He arrived unannounced and rang the doorbell. After hearing his introduction, Mrs. British reached out and embraced him. She said, "Young man, if you've got nowhere to go, my husband and I would love for you to spend your weekend with us."
He stayed, and as he was looking around Linda's room, he saw that she's read Plato. He's read Plato in Braille. She'd read Hegel. He'd read Hegel in Braille.
The next morning, Mrs. British was looking at him and said, "You know, I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before, but I don't know where." All of a sudden she remembered. She ran upstairs and pulled out the last picture Linda had ever drawn. It was a portrait of her ideal man.
The picture was virtually identical to this young man who had received Linda's eyes.
Then her mother read the last poem Linda had written on her deathbed. It read:
Two hearts passing in the night
falling in love
never able to gain each other's sight
~ Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen - from A Second Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
(**Hopefully I haven't violated any copyright laws in reprinting this here. This story spoke to me today and I wanted to share it. I have many Chicken Soup for the Soul books and most of the stories make me bawl... and I love them for it! wierd...)
