On Dying Well

H-band's aunt Cynthia came over for dinner the other night. Cynthia does what she calls hospice care and what I call God's work. When my Dad was sick I found even the first day of caring for him draining, more emotionally than physically.

"What I do is really no big deal," Cynthia said to us over dinner. "Anyone can do it--care for people before they transition. But we've lost the knowledge of how."

I do believe that American society, specifically, has stigmatized death and dying to the point of making it distasteful.

Once after inquiring into the health of my friend Jen who was--we were to later learn--terminally ill, h-band said to me later, "Why did you just ask her about her cancer?"

"Because I wanted to know."

"If she wanted to talk about it she would have brought it up," he said.

"Maybe she wasn't bringing it up because we hadn't asked," I said.

At that point I had yet to experience the deaths of my father, grandfather, grandmother, and good friend, Craig, people whom I wished I'd spent more time talking to, not out of some morbid curiosity of their proximity to death, but to provide comfort and to prepare them for what was to come. In some cases, I think talking about illness is a path to healing, if not physically, then spiritually.

We aren't sure what to say to someone who is dying, for fear that we might make him aware of what he already knows--that he's dying. Sometimes we don't want to talk about it for our own purposes, because death makes us think of our own.

In 2000, a friend of mine killed himself at the age of 24. We had dated for a while, then stopped, and then when I found out he was suicidal I made a concerted effort to stay in his life. When he died, few people knew what to say to me. One friend later confessed, with apology, "I wasn't sure I could handle what you were going through, so I stayed away." I understood, but I was disappointed; this response was just what I had feared--that people would see my friend's death as contagious rather than illuminating.

I resented my friend who died--for taking himself physically out of my life forever and for bringing me closer to a knowledge that was frightening. I now knew first-hand pain that I had naively expected to avoid until I was old enough to handle it. For years I assumed that even estranged people eventually came back; that nothing really ended badly. We'd all get our moment to rectify the bad taste we'd left in the mouths of people we hurt, and that the hurt that had been left in us by others would be smoothed or dissolved before they were gone for good. The truth that life wasn't constructed around me made me sick to my stomach.

I also felt woefully ignorant of what happened after death; I wanted to know what followed. I hired psychics to speak to my friend, read books by Sylvia Browne, and tried to conjure him myself with candles and meditation. If someone who used his laundry detergent passed me on the street I stopped in my tracks, trying to sniff him out. I wanted access to this world, without dying myself, to confirm that nothing really ended, and to, perhaps, get a glimpse of what awaited me when my time did come.

Eventually I felt a sense of gratitude for losing my friend. In this case the tragedy wasn't his death, it was his struggle with life. So many people are blindsided when people they love get sick, die in accidents, or are murdered, but my friend's passing was a more forgiving lesson. Instead of permanent damage, my eyes became better acclimated to the light of loss.

~~~~~~~~~

H-band and I attended a memorial service for our friend, Jen, yesterday. The church was one of the most beautiful I've seen, buttressed by trees and with a full view of the woods. This ceremony was planned by her family, and I assumed it would have more of a religious tone to it, in comparison to the celebration that was planned by her friends today. But this wasn't the case.

The minister opened by calling the memorial a celebration, and a transition. She spoke of the phenomenon of the Nautilus--a physical manifestation of a living being's impact on the Earth. I considered Jen's Nautilus, so beautifully articulated by her family, and Nautilus of others close to me who have passed, and saw death very differently.

It occurred to me why I've had uneasiness with loss that has lessened with each one. After my first friend died I learned that I can't prevent death or loss, but I wasn't settled with the lesson. I accepted my father's death but still felt like there was more to be done.

Cynthia made the distinction so simple; we don't need to prevent anything, to shut it out, to keep death on the QT. But we can help with transition. This isn't a task that should only be delegated to hospice workers, chaplains, or God, but to all witnesses on Earth.

Jen's passing was an example of this oft-forgotten but ancient act of delegation. So many watched her and listened, some chronicled, and all celebrated, even while grieving. I imagined Jen as a mortal mollusk being lovingly pulled out her shell, carefully but actively, by hundreds of hands, and then embarking out to sea. And all of us on land honoring what was left.    

Jennifer Guy death dying

Comments

[Chris Owen]

Oh Jory!
You SOO nail it when you write. Thanks for taking me to this place and reminding me of a few things by putting different words and thus new insights around them!
As usual, well done!

[Joy]

What an amazing piece Jor...I connected so much with everything you said....and you said it so beautifully. I thought of dad, Papa, and Grandma...and what you've written is so true. You do have a way of making us all see the light. Thank you honey...
Love, Mom

[Elizabeth Michel]

Another beautiful piece, Jory. I loved the last image, and it helped me, too, in my sadness over Jen's dying at such a young age.

Love,

Mom Elizabeth

[miffy]

So grateful for your words and the fact that you share them Jory! Reminds me of "Gifts From The Sea"....don't fight the ebb and flow with our permanency issues...enjoy all the fluidity takes and leaves!
Thanks!
See you next month in NYC!

[Whimspiration]

Beautifully written. I have never been truly disturbed by death. Thank you for making the societally "abnormal" acceptance of reality into a beautiful thing.

[genevieve]

'Instead of permanent damage, my eyes became better acclimatised to the light of loss.'

What a terrific image. Thank you very much, Jory, for this is exactly what we do.
Sending hugs to both of you at this sad time, I agree that transition is a much better sense of what happens.
We lost two of our classmates at 23 in a terrible road accident, and I have often talked to one of them over the years, just in my head, and recapped the whole horrible thing when my cousin's daughter died in the Bali bombings in 2002, this time from a parent's perspective which I suppose I did not have before. But always, with the case of Chris E. in particular, I guess when things have been tough for me I have 'said' to her sometimes, 'you should have had this, you would have handled it better, you did not have your chance at this and so I must go on.'
Which is odd really, because I was not good friends with her, she welcomed me to a new school at a difficult age and kept an eye out for me, is all. She was a good soul. They do stay with us, they do. We just have to remember to say hi every once in a while, and honour their passing.
Take care.

[Mike]

Beautiful, Jory. Simply beautiful.

With love,

Mike

[patti digh]

the metaphor of the nautilus is gorgeous - and you've raised such an important topic, yet one we shy away from, ignore, deny. Thank you. I learned so much recently from a most remarkable leave-taking and transition that might be of interest or helpful or just illustrative of your urging us to access death - I know I learned a hell of a lot from it. it is here, in case it's of interest - the story of Meta, a young woman dead at 20: http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2006/11/forever_hold_yo.html
How her family and friends helped her transition is remarkable to me. So much of life is lost in our denial of death, our separation of it from life, when it is so much a part of life, the very condition for life itself. Thank you for your insights.

[jen]

what an exceptional tribute, and a call to bravery for everyone.

glad to have you at our roundtable, sister.