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About EHW
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Reflections
on Death -- Making Dying a Part of Living We will all experience the death of a loved one and we will know our own dying one day. We can choose to face death with fear or we can choose to establish an unafraid, heartfelt understanding and communication with others, especially and most importantly with those who are dying. When I was four years old, I had a near death experience where it felt like I was gone for a long time. When I surfaced again, I could not remember the English language or how to talk and I had to start all over again learning how to fit in, trying to know what my life was really for. My grandmother played a very significant and profound role in my healing back to awareness. She must have known on that mystic night so long ago that something extraordinary yet frightening was about to take place in that tiny attic room where I lay with a high fever. Just as it felt like I was being pulled through a brightly illuminated tunnel, my grandmother quietly crept up the stairs to check in on me. I can still see her standing in the doorway holding a coal oil lantern, clad in her long flowing white night gown with her white Grandma hair, that beautiful transparent look in her eyes. Why, she almost looked and appeared like an angel hovering there in the doorway and I knew it was okay to let go and journey through the tunnel. That was my Grandma therefore I knew I would be safe to leave. The next deep and intimate encounter that I can remember having with my grandmother was at her funeral. I was ten years old then, and not fully numb yet to the magical world of third eye sight and as I stood there peering into Grandma's coffin at her serene and luminescent face, I heard her draw a breath and then another one and what…I saw her move. It was as though she was coming alive again right out of her coffin and she looked much younger. Well, I gasped out loud as prayers were being recited, exclaiming to my Mom, who was standing next to me, "she's alive", "Grandma lives." You can imagine what this sounded like back in the fifties and I was hushed silent immediately and made to feel shame at calling out during prayers. I pulled in my wings and never spoke of it again but my grandmother never went away. She remained somewhere in the unseen, always ready to come quickly when called upon in times of trouble and grief and oh, joy too. I'm sure it was my Grandma's loving influence in my life and the experiences that we shared so deeply that led me into the work of hospice and palliative care. Reflecting
on my childhood experiences with death, it seems that only recently have we
begun to understand our dying, yet still at times preferring not to think about
it. We often try to shelter our children from the fear and dread of a painful
ending. Yet, it is children who can help us the most with our stress and
anxiety, bringing us back to our innocent selves. We knew as children that we
were connected to God and the Divine Mother, thus connected to our living and
our dying. We knew as young ones that at birth we walk through a doorway and in
death we walk through the doorway again with no separation in any part of the
journey. In
my work with the dying I feel so much gratitude for they have given me so many
gifts of loving wisdom and intimate moments of deep understanding. They have
especially given me comfort and ease about my own life's sojourn that I wish to
share the story of one patient out of the many hundreds I have had the honor to
sit with in their last days and moments. Here is her parting gift to you also. I
always felt a little bit nervous sitting there with her, feeling as though I was
intruding on her determined silence and her private thoughts, rationalizing that
there were so many others on the unit who would appreciate a visit. And it was
in this attitude one night that I got up to leave Pauline alone when she reached
out her hand to me and cried, "Please don't go, I don't want to be
alone." I sat back down and it was then that Pauline began her story, like
a life review as she let it off her chest in a sad and regretful way. As she
talked I watched her face become softer and the deep lines around her eyes began
to ease and I could feel her begin to let go. Pauline's
life has not been easy at all. She had worked most of her adult years as a
barmaid in an old hotel on Hastings Street, never marrying, struggling to make
the best of things. Her closest friend and maybe her only significant friend had
been the bartender who seemed to have abandoned her at the beginning of her
illness, so Pauline was all alone. The scars on her wrists spoke of an earlier
time when the loneliness and the heartbreak may have been too much to bear. That evening, Pauline let her heart speak and what I began to notice about Pauline was the hardness of her cover, her false self dropped away and a new innocent little child emerged. Her true nature transposed, there to behold in all its child-like beauty and then she quietly slipped away a day or two later. It is so important in these transformational times that we turn to our family to offer our love and compassion to those who are dying and who are in pain and fear of the end. Helping to find a "healing meaning" in one's dying is our opportunity. We can do this by offering a deep nurturing and a non-judgmental loving listening which means, being in a space that is heart to heart with another. Consoling, attending to, helping to take care of the heart, the heart break, bringing in some loving kindness and having mercy for ourselves and our regrets are part of this healing. These attitudes are so vital to a dying person's well being, to be able to sit deeply in the heart with another, often in the silence of the spirit, where a very beautiful energetic pathway opens and the loved one is able to just simply let go, moving with the passage that is called death. Attending
to, with individuals who are living with a terminal illness, supporting and
consoling their families, is truly a privilege and a blessing for all who are
involved in the gentle care of the living/dying experience. As many more
individuals choose to die at home in the comfort of their own familiar
surroundings, we as family, friends and caregivers have a special opportunity to
share intimate moments with our loved one, opening our hearts to our sacred
journey. It is a powerful experience to witness a dying person drop all the
surface "stuff" and get to the heart of each moment. Meeting ourselves
and another, deep in our hearts is the most powerful journey we can take
together. We are called to give our gifts, letting the healing in, letting this
be our human quest. |
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