A Death Observed, Part One

Today is Good Friday, so in meditating on the passion and redemption of Christ, I thought it a suitable time to begin a series on my mom’s death last December.  No other event in my life has, so far, made me feel my need of Christ’s strength and grace so much.  But I would also describe the days of her translation as perhaps the most profound worship experience of my life.  This post marks the beginning of a seven-part series to deal with the subject, and will include a list of some helpful information I received from hospice workers and lawyers, as well as my own spiritual observations.  It is NOT intended to be professional legal or medical counseling.  And I know it’s not what we normally write about (i.e. kids’ books), but occasionally Janie and I use the site for personal reflections, and I hope this will be a simple, concise resource for what to expect when facing the death of loved one from a Christian perspective.  It’s an attempt to write the short guide I wish I had received last year.

In the coming days, in addition to this series, I’ll focus on picture book resources for children on death.  If you just can’t wait, I have already talked about my favorite one here.

One Month to Two Months Prior to Death, Physical Symptoms:

• withdrawal from friends and family and normal activities
  
• not able to focus as well
• reduced appetite and increased sleep
• my mom also started retaining a lot of water; her body systems just weren’t functioning right.  No one told us this, but afterward we knew this was part of the body’s shutting down process.
  

My suggestions for caregivers and loved ones:

• talk to someone who’s just been through this
• talk to a lawyer if possible—to ask questions and obtain documents below
• finalize plans for a will, a power of attorney, and a health directive. You may also consider a Do Not Resuscitate Order.
• read short passages of the Bible to your loved one if they will let you.  They may not be able to read or focus long enough themselves, but may appreciate hearing it read.
• massages, back scratches, warm heating pads, and other physical reliefs to pain may be appreciated.  (But they may not, so ask!)
• a good time for last trips, photo albums or scrapbooks to help remember God’s blessings over the course of their life.
  

Two Months Prior to Death, Emily’s Reflections

A couple of months before my mother’s death, my friend K and I met for supper at Ellendale’s in Nashville—an antebellum-esque home filled with lots of Southern charm, now turned restaurant where my husband and I have celebrated anniversaries, and one friend and I have celebrated each time we got pregnant. Think oak floors, glass chandeliers, moderately talented jazz players crooning in the background.  Since we have been regular visitors, the cook and menu have changed, but their dark chocolate cake is still to die for.

She and I met there on a late-summer night, August or September, and one of the reasons I invited K to dinner was this: her father had recently passed away from cancer, and my mother seemed to be losing her battle with colon cancer.  I wanted to know what would be required of me as I tried to help my mom and dad through her dying process.  I had read stuff online.  I had talked to my dad alone about what the doctors were saying.  But I wanted to look into someone’s eyes.  I wanted to hear a human voice.  I wanted to know from a friend what I should expect.

K’s father’s story was such a heart-breaking one.  He had been diagnosed with a heart condition, and he actually almost died from that before being tossed into a study down in Birmingham.  That lead him to get some sort of pump or electronic help for his heart, and he responded so well that for all intents and purposes he had been healed.  Only a few months later, though, he was diagnosed with cancer, and he passed away very soon after.

K is actually a lot like my mom.  She’s always thinking about what other people need, not what’s in it for her.  And she never hesitated when I asked her to dinner, upfront about the reason.  What she offered me that night was genuine Christian love: a willingness to sit down with me and rehash her painful experience.  She didn’t unload every doubt or the depths of her pain, but she told me the facts.  She explained how important it had been that her dad had reconciled with her and her brothers for past wrongs.  She told me how things went–a day by day account of the last weeks and days.  And she offered three crucial things: 1) advice that I see a lawyer and try to wrap up as many legal issues as possible. She helped me talk through the unresolved issues—for instance, who would take care of my grandmother and great-grandmother. (If you don’t have time to consult a lawyer, even a site like Legal Zoom might be helpful.); 2) a description of some of the practical things they had learned. For instance, the hospice nurse would only come two or three times a week. If I needed help above that in the last weeks, I’d have to hire a private nurse.  Don’t know of one?  Ask the hospice folks if they can recommend someone; and finally, 3) she offered compassion and prayer for what we were about to go through. She talked about what it was like to lose her own father and how much it hurt.  And together we talked and prayed over the Lord’s role in all this–in her grief and in my mother’s pain and my anxiety.

Some of the things I most wanted to know she couldn’t answer.  Most pressing among them were, “How much time do we have?” and “What should I say to her?” But she did pass on a hospice booklet, Gone from My Sight.  It gave the basics of the stages of death, with some Christian-ized advice about what death means.  (For instance, it teaches that when a loved one dies, they are no longer in their body but have gone somewhere else.  It’s amazing how horrible death without that truth can be.)  It’s also lacking in other areas, putting forth the view that every death is just a ship passing into heavenly waters.  I didn’t read it at this point.  Later that night I put in on my bedside table, and there it sat under my Bible and books on the Renaissance and Anne of Green Gables, etc. until I needed it a few months later.

During October, we took our last family vacation to the Florida panhandle.  We didn’t know for sure it would be the last one, but there was a sense of her time getting shorter.  She would normally have slept with the girls and let me have my own room, but she didn’t feel like it this time.  Her stomach was retaining water, and any kind of jostling–from the girls or in the car–was just too painful.  She was starting to be unable to enjoy eating, too.  She would sometimes feel sick or have indigestion after eating, and she spent maybe half the day unable to go and do anything with us.

But I will never forget the first night when we walked out onto the white sand together.   Me and my mom under a blistering red sunset in the sky, while my children romped and squealed and laughed around us, ecstatic at the grandeur of it all.  Then she went and sat on the wooden walkway, watching the girls and I play until we lost our breaths and had to fall onto our backs, too.   We weren’t sure this would be the last time here together.  Maybe the treatments would begin to work.  Maybe things would be better in a few months.  But just to be sure, I held onto the moment like a child savoring her last bit of Easter candy.  Still do.

See A Death Observed Part Two and Part Three.