Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 1:01am
The gift of a winter's grace
Column: Life at First Sight
About a year ago, I watched as a family sat companionably together in a small sitting area outside the room where their loved one had just died. Their circle had an unhurried and inviting calm as they talked quietly together. The atmosphere around them, which occasionally included a peal of soft laughter, was irresistibly attractive. I hovered like a moth near this group that seemed so utterly at peace. When they graciously invited me over, I immediately felt the intensity of the light and warmth around them.
Today, I understand just what they were doing, and what attracted me. They were imbibing a kind of aftermath, one in which they were deliberately extending their experience of a connection with something greater than themselves, and with each other, before they had to go their separate ways again. They were basking in the quiet awe that results from their having witnessed together someone's last breaths, and their having accompanied him as he found his final freedom.
The setting was a nearly new hospice house in Massachusetts, where my husband's family had just arrived that afternoon after learning that my father-in-law would be spending his last days and hours there. We were all still taking it in, feeling a bit as though we were in a dream, yet very grateful to know that this unexpected oasis had somehow appeared on the horizon, both for his sake and for ours.
Our relief was a kind of gasping, breathless astonishment. We hadn't even known how much pain we'd been in until we were suddenly granted this chance to have capable, incredibly caring hands take over. The preceding weeks had been ones of increasing pain for this man who was suffering with cancer, and hours of hopeless anguish for the rest of us as we'd repeatedly encountered how very little we were able to do to assist him any further.
In those first few hours after we settled into this new "home," we were in a sort of psychic culture shock. It was as though we'd all been clinging together on a small raft in the midst of the ocean, watching a storm build and the waves rise higher and higher, and wondering when the end would finally engulf us. Then, suddenly, it was as if we'd awakened on a luxurious ocean liner where the first and unquestioned priority was to take care of all of us. I think we must have felt a bit like foundlings that day, and finally seeing our loved one get a reprieve from his pain stirred very deep emotion and gratitude within us. We were still afraid, sad and uncertain, but we were coming to believe that there really was a kinder — and more life-affirming — way toward the end after all, and that hospice is a very benevolent and competent custodian on that path.
Like birth, so much about the process of death can be orderly, purposeful and quite wondrous by design. I can see now why some have likened it to a sort of physical birth in reverse. Knowledge is a source of empowerment and reassurance as one watches this process, and it's remarkable how hospice imparts precisely the information that families need in order to understand more fully, and to let go of fear. Hospice's own profound understanding of the process of death also facilitates the utmost physical comfort possible for the patient.
We miss so much of life by avoiding contact with death. In six days that held more than many months ever could, my family and I came to know a level of awe, love and joy that we hadn't even imagined was possible. The beauty of the intimacy in accompanying someone on his final progression toward death, and making that journey together as a family, still moves us to tears that drive any words of description even farther from our reach. But I suspect our ancestors would know exactly what we've experienced.
In 1911, Abdu'l-Baha, son of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, was asked, "How should one look forward to death?" He replied: "How does one look forward to the goal of any journey? With hope and with expectation. It is even so with the end of this earthly journey."
An awful lot of Americans are going to die over the next 30 or 40 years, in part because so very many of us have been born since the Second World War. Those of us who were born in the 1950s and '60s have seen the concept of birth reclaimed and redefined in our lifetimes, and, by some larger grace, we're gradually getting the chance to encounter death anew, and more completely, as well. Yet despite decades of dedicated work by people like Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross, there still seems to be a huge, hands-off taboo when it comes to dying, something I'm beginning to think might be making many of us ill even while we're living.
My family probably will never be able to sufficiently thank the attentive doctor, and the remarkably good timing, that helped my husband's dad receive the gift of a bed in a hospice house, rare as they are in these times. Cliched as it may sound, every encounter we had with hospice from our very first contact, like the logo on the local Hospice sign, was a lighthouse guiding us safely to shore. When we reached the refuge of the hospice house itself, it was as though dozens of pairs of caring arms had caught us up in a safe haven.
Because of those gifts, there were five of us in the room when the final moments came, and that room had truly come to feel like home for us all. My father-in-law was surrounded by the family members who'd been caring for him in the months prior. His daughters and son held him and talked with him quietly, comforting him and telling him that they loved him and that it was OK to take that step, even as we all cried freely as we looked on. It took perhaps a minute, and then, with a gentle sigh and a small smile at the end, he was gone. It was one of many kind things that have been a part of this journey.
We were all both amazed and quite grateful. And, like that family I'd seen the week before, we lingered together in that soft, light-kissed atmosphere in an unhurried way before we returned to the lives that were waiting for us.
From the time of his diagnosis, my father-in-law lived about the length of the winter, a fitting metaphor for his final stage in this life. I think that those of us who held him in those last moments can all feel within us the very breath of spring toward which he was reaching next.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Today, I understand just what they were doing, and what attracted me. They were imbibing a kind of aftermath, one in which they were deliberately extending their experience of a connection with something greater than themselves, and with each other, before they had to go their separate ways again. They were basking in the quiet awe that results from their having witnessed together someone's last breaths, and their having accompanied him as he found his final freedom.
The setting was a nearly new hospice house in Massachusetts, where my husband's family had just arrived that afternoon after learning that my father-in-law would be spending his last days and hours there. We were all still taking it in, feeling a bit as though we were in a dream, yet very grateful to know that this unexpected oasis had somehow appeared on the horizon, both for his sake and for ours.
Our relief was a kind of gasping, breathless astonishment. We hadn't even known how much pain we'd been in until we were suddenly granted this chance to have capable, incredibly caring hands take over. The preceding weeks had been ones of increasing pain for this man who was suffering with cancer, and hours of hopeless anguish for the rest of us as we'd repeatedly encountered how very little we were able to do to assist him any further.
In those first few hours after we settled into this new "home," we were in a sort of psychic culture shock. It was as though we'd all been clinging together on a small raft in the midst of the ocean, watching a storm build and the waves rise higher and higher, and wondering when the end would finally engulf us. Then, suddenly, it was as if we'd awakened on a luxurious ocean liner where the first and unquestioned priority was to take care of all of us. I think we must have felt a bit like foundlings that day, and finally seeing our loved one get a reprieve from his pain stirred very deep emotion and gratitude within us. We were still afraid, sad and uncertain, but we were coming to believe that there really was a kinder — and more life-affirming — way toward the end after all, and that hospice is a very benevolent and competent custodian on that path.
Like birth, so much about the process of death can be orderly, purposeful and quite wondrous by design. I can see now why some have likened it to a sort of physical birth in reverse. Knowledge is a source of empowerment and reassurance as one watches this process, and it's remarkable how hospice imparts precisely the information that families need in order to understand more fully, and to let go of fear. Hospice's own profound understanding of the process of death also facilitates the utmost physical comfort possible for the patient.
We miss so much of life by avoiding contact with death. In six days that held more than many months ever could, my family and I came to know a level of awe, love and joy that we hadn't even imagined was possible. The beauty of the intimacy in accompanying someone on his final progression toward death, and making that journey together as a family, still moves us to tears that drive any words of description even farther from our reach. But I suspect our ancestors would know exactly what we've experienced.
In 1911, Abdu'l-Baha, son of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, was asked, "How should one look forward to death?" He replied: "How does one look forward to the goal of any journey? With hope and with expectation. It is even so with the end of this earthly journey."
An awful lot of Americans are going to die over the next 30 or 40 years, in part because so very many of us have been born since the Second World War. Those of us who were born in the 1950s and '60s have seen the concept of birth reclaimed and redefined in our lifetimes, and, by some larger grace, we're gradually getting the chance to encounter death anew, and more completely, as well. Yet despite decades of dedicated work by people like Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross, there still seems to be a huge, hands-off taboo when it comes to dying, something I'm beginning to think might be making many of us ill even while we're living.
My family probably will never be able to sufficiently thank the attentive doctor, and the remarkably good timing, that helped my husband's dad receive the gift of a bed in a hospice house, rare as they are in these times. Cliched as it may sound, every encounter we had with hospice from our very first contact, like the logo on the local Hospice sign, was a lighthouse guiding us safely to shore. When we reached the refuge of the hospice house itself, it was as though dozens of pairs of caring arms had caught us up in a safe haven.
Because of those gifts, there were five of us in the room when the final moments came, and that room had truly come to feel like home for us all. My father-in-law was surrounded by the family members who'd been caring for him in the months prior. His daughters and son held him and talked with him quietly, comforting him and telling him that they loved him and that it was OK to take that step, even as we all cried freely as we looked on. It took perhaps a minute, and then, with a gentle sigh and a small smile at the end, he was gone. It was one of many kind things that have been a part of this journey.
We were all both amazed and quite grateful. And, like that family I'd seen the week before, we lingered together in that soft, light-kissed atmosphere in an unhurried way before we returned to the lives that were waiting for us.
From the time of his diagnosis, my father-in-law lived about the length of the winter, a fitting metaphor for his final stage in this life. I think that those of us who held him in those last moments can all feel within us the very breath of spring toward which he was reaching next.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring