I'm Not Sick, I'm Dying

Ever since my son-in-law said death was like birth it has spun around in my head bouncing back and forth.

To me it seemed like the exact opposite. Until I looked at it from an illness view-point it felt like the comparison wasn’t accurate.

My mom is at the end of her life. She’s passing and she is not ill. Her body is done and her mind has wrapped itself around the facts.

She said “I’m done” last week. Not her being done with curing an illness, getting better and living another ten years. Done with treating this time in her life as an illness and going from emergency room, back home and soon to emergency room again.

Blood draws, X-rays, Infusions, urine samples new meds, new advice for her and her caregivers.

She asked her doctor to be referred to Hospice. She asked more than once. More than one nurse, doctor, social worker. She shouldn’t have to voice this wish of hers. Her body resonates “I’m passing on”. Her every movement, pain, fatigue, difficulties with everything. 

She’s walking on and those hands reaching out to set down the red carpet are far and few between. She has to struggle and struggle more.

This time is precious. As precious as the time my daughter gave birth to my grandson. Each contraction brings it near to the end of struggle and the presence of a newborn.

Mom is going through the pains of walking on. I hear her groan and toss and turn, I see her eyes half open in pain and concentration to get through the next spasm, the next sharp pain in her shoulder, the pain across her forehead. Each contraction from life will bring her near the end of her struggle.

We can choose to be present at this moment when her spirit and soul will leave her body. 

She may choose that no one is there when she waves her last goodbye.  I visualize her smile when she draws her last breath. When she knows she’s done. Life will slip away. Like my grandson slipped into this world.

As I sit and write with my coffee nearby, my mom could be eyeing her purple shamrock, her back window with flowers and green, green grass. She could be smiling as she feels the blanket at her neck one last time, hears voices in the next room as the song of her parting.

She has had a chance to know her life is ending. She’s been able to determine she is not an ill person, but a person who wants to die with dignity and the respect for death as she has 

for life. 

Not all of us will have that chance. A chance to savor the moments of family with tears, stories and regrets in the same room as her.  Uncomfortable for everyone but her. She doesn’t have to answer questions of who she is, was and will be. This is it, she is at the end of her story.

But her story will continue. Through her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Through all those she has touched with her wit and wisdom, her hospitality and kindness.

Life after Mom. Seems inconceivable really. But life is always after something. It never is the future. It is only this moment. We do not know the future. Mom knows she will pass. That is seeing the future for her. 

She hasn’t been one to predict what will happen to her children. The births, middle-life and deaths of those she loves. She had to struggle through many events. Many, many events. I saw the tough, independent side of her. I saw the submissive, trapped side. She continued to love her family and herself in spite of the tough things she’s had to endure. 

I’ve been inspired by not just a woman who is my mom, but a woman who’s advice to me when I get her age is, “Like yourself”.

I want her to be allowed to like herself. Not to be seen as a woman who is ill and isn’t good enough or worked hard enough so she dies. I want her to see the grand woman she has become. The teacher of many of us.

We are all dying. We are good enough. I’m with her in her advice “Like yourself”. We live, we live more and we die. We can’t change the past, we can't
control the future, we can be present now, grounded in this place we have, the space we choose to exist in for now.

For now.