Reflections on Living and Dying

Michael and I have spent the past five days sitting with his mom as she slowly makes the final journey of her life.  We have had the support of her family, friends, and hospice along the way.  So many people who love her, who have shown up to sit and care.

When Judie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December, we all agreed to see how we could help her stay with us, in our home.  Thankfully we have been able to have her at home for the past ten months and she is dying in her own room with all the important people in her family surrounding and supporting her.  And I didn’t know what a gift the experience would be for me.

This road is filled with lessons.  I’m learning that important lessons about living come from the experience of sitting with dying.  Learning about critical values like love, human frailty, compassion, courage, forgiveness, and about the value of time.  These are all things I know about, but I am experiencing them in new ways as I sit here in the presence of the completing circle.  I sit in awe and I feel how blessed I am to be allowed to help care for the end of another person’s life.  At the end, I am working to be focused on being fully present, in this moment, and this moment, and then in the next.

There is something that can happen, if you allow it, when you care for another person as they die.  You can fall in love with them in new ways, and you can fall in love with life.

I have a unique opportunity to foreshadow my own life, see my own end and look at the places I am wasting time or energy on things that don’t serve me or those around me. Places where I might be focused on the small stuff, the unimportant, the meaningless, holding onto resentments, or judgments, or bitterness toward myself or others.  I cannot keep love and judgment in the same space in my mind or heart and continue to stay present.

Knowing that you cannot give what you do not have.  You cannot be what you are not willing to become.  You have to become love to give love.

Sitting quietly in the presence of an ending life offers us a look at places that are scary, but these are places we will all be looking at eventually.   Developing peace through this experience requires us to look at ourselves and reflect, looking at the thoughts or beliefs that are helping or challenging the ones that are hurting. Death asks us to explore where our attachments to stories, beliefs, and ideas might be leading us onto a fearful lonely path.  Dying allows us to become courageous in the face our fears.

Life goals are wonderful, they give us direction.  But, life is far more mysterious and deeply meaningful than solely completing a series of goals.  Life is about experiencing both the ups and the downs.  Finding joy in the moments.  We have the opportunity to recognizing the connection between us all, as we spin along on this shared spaceship, being born, having a life and then passing on into the next experience.  We share this reality with every other living thing on this planet, to include the planet.  Learning to rejoice in life’s mystery.  We can miss our purpose if we are focused only on things like making money, or  all the stuff we want, or sitting in judgment of others.  In the end, the only things that bring joy are the meaningful relationships you create, the people you love and the people who love you back.  The ones who will help to feed you, feed your soul, rub your back, wash you, and help you comfortably move through the rough places that come into each of our lives.

Sometimes we sit waiting for our lives to begin.  But life is not a dress rehearsal. Life is happening even if you’re waiting, life is happening all around you.

My biggest challenge is in recognizing the illusion of “control” that I still want to have in my life.  Challenging this illusion and allowing myself to be  fully present, in the moment.  Trusting that I will get what I need to be a better human being.  Being in touch with my own soul, and working on the lightness. My biggest insight is that life is an adventure towards surrendering.  In every moment letting go of expectations, of anger, and remembering that each of us are all on the learning journey together.  And, that insight has been huge for me.  Surrendering.  Breathing.  Surrendering again.  I see how difficult the surrendering has been in Judie’s ending life.  For her, for us, letting go and letting love.  In these last moments, none of us can take care of ourselves alone.  At the end, we need others, we require care, and we all must let go.

I am sitting with my own internal struggle as the train continues forward and there are no more stops or choices along the way.  No more doors to open, save one.  And our family has talked about how surreal it is when you come to the end of life.  For me this blessing has been important: reminding me to be aware of love, making choices that matter and mean something in my life, because I too will come to the end of my own journey and I want to be able to embrace it as my next adventure instead of my last.

Dream as if you will live forever

Dream as if you’ll live forever live as if you’ll die tomorrow.

Living and dying are issues that are coming up in my home very distinctly.  I haven’t shared with many people my personal life situation.  But, when my husband and I moved from New Mexico to Washington State in 2013, we brought my mom with us.  She was no longer able to manage her affairs, she had lost most of her vision due to a Pituitary Tumor and the related surgeries, and she just basically needed more help.  So, the option was to find her a place to live, or move her in with us.  I have a complex, complicated, and in the past it has been an often painful relationship, and she and I both saw this as an opportunity to work towards healing our relationship and ourselves. It’s a work in progress in my life, learning to let go of resentments, hurts, and StoryJack my experience day to day.

We had been living in Washington State for about a year when my mother in law was suddenly homeless.  It was a no brainer, we had just purchased a home that had a daylight basement with a living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom, so we moved my mother-in-law into our home.  And, soon after moving in with us in October 2014, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with end stage Pancreatic Cancer.  Since that time, we have begun the process of living and dying in our home.  Death is a hard thing to watch and participate with, but death comes with many gifts.  It creates the space to look at how you want to live your life and how you want to die.  My mother and my mother-in-law could probably not be more different.  My mom is a developing Buddhist and my mother-in-law is conservative Baptist.  I fall somewhere in between.  Sometime about 15 years ago my mother-in-law was telling me about how terrible Pagans were when I asked what a Pagan was, she said, “Someone who loves nature and sees God in nature.” I apparently, in a fit of being contrary, told my mother-in-law that I was a Pagan.  That stuck poorly with my mother-in-law.  I was not being compassionate at that dinner years ago.  And while I don’t consider myself a Pagan, I do still love nature and I do see God in every leaf, flower, and living thing.  My past contrariness has forced me to look at the fact that we are, all four of us, very different.  And, there are many gifts that come from learning to let go of judgment, learning to be accepting, and the willingness to work through differences with those we love, it has been deeply powerful.

Dying is, at its heart, the act of letting go.  Letting go of the stories we have told ourselves that in the end don’t matter.  Letting go of the illusion of control.  Letting go of the ideas of what life should be like.  Breathing through pain.  And, ultimately letting people in, letting them help, letting go of how you think you’re supposed to get love, get help, and learning to accept the love that is around you.  God shows up in the people who are there for you in these difficult times.  Learning to let go is much harder to do than to say.

As I sit and comfort and watch my mother-in-law struggle with the letting go process of dying it is also a letting go process for me.  Not one of us can walk another person’s journey.  I can’t make her better, I can’t make the emotional pain go away, and I can’t make her better.  She is allowing me to show her love, help her where I can, dispensing morphine, rubbing her back or hair, and just being a loving presence in the space that lets her know she is not alone.

 

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