Early and Often

Tending to Endings (ten)

There is an internet meme that includes some version of the question, What would you do today if you knew you were going to die next week?

Sometimes I think our collective denial about death is so deep that we could just as easily say, What would you do differently if you knew you were going to die? 

Eventually. Someday. Ever.

My own denial rears its head in interesting ways. As I’ve launched this project to study end-of-life matters and explore resources in my community, I occasionally worry that by paying attention to death I will somehow call it to me early. Plus, won’t people start thinking of me as that weirdo who is always wanting to talk about dying?

I believe in living for the day. I believe in putting energy into that which we can positively change. Why focus on the ending when there is so much that comes before? 

The truth is I do believe there are times when blinders are helpful. One of the hardest things about being a caregiver to a loved one in serious decline is having to navigate our own grief while helping a person who is struggling as their body and brain give way. It is common to tell those caring for loved ones with Alzheimers not read ahead in the books about the disease because it will be too disturbing.

I can’t say I always disagree. At times I went into survival mode just so I had the energy to cope, knowing there will be time to process the myriad of emotions later.

But what if we didn’t wait until the end–or until we were in crisis mode over someone else’s ending–before we accepted that there would be one?

Of course we know we will die. But many of us have had that experience of knowing mortality differently, more deeply, after we brush close to death for one reason or another. I think my question is this–Would we benefit from rubbing up against death earlier and more often?

A few months after my mom died, I soaked in the hot springs in the mountains with my friends Mary Ellen and Malia, both of whom had also recently lost loved ones. We needed healing and a chance to talk with others who wouldn’t think it strange or shocking, all the details of death.

“We should get this information about dying much earlier,” I said. “It’s a lot, when you are grieving and making decisions about where to have your mother’s body cremated and finalizing insurance claims, to also come face-to-face with your own mortality.”

Mary Ellen’s eyes brightened, “Maybe it could come in an owner’s manual you receive upon birth: You are a mortal being. This body will breakdown at some point. Here are some helpful instructions! We could include a packet with advanced directives and options for what you’d like done to the body when you are through with it!”

I laughed. “Or maybe there should be a class in junior high?”

I think we sometimes assume we must have a major life altering event or a cancer scare in order to face our own mortality. And yes, that often works. But there are many cultures in which death is a presumed part of life.

A special issue of Yes! Magazine explores death and includes and overview of rituals and traditions of immigrants who bring the reality of death into everyday life. And as recently as a hundred years ago, family members of all ages had more opportunity to interact with those close to death even here in the U.S. because most people still died at home.

Krista Tippett, host of OnBeing recently was interviewed on Preach, and she spoke about attending Ram Dass’s final retreat in Hawaii a couple months before he died. Ram Dass had been living with the effects of a stroke for the last twenty years that interfered with his ability to move and speak. But he still ran retreats twice a year at his home, and these always included people who were chronically ill and near death. Tippett talked about why it was a profound experience for her to be with people who were actively dying:

It sounds strange to say, but it is incredibly life giving to have the fact that we will all die very openly in our midst, which just led to this really intense dwelling with what life is. And the other thing about this retreat that felt spiritually nourishing to me is that it was a really intergenerational gathering.

This intergenerational aspect is interesting to me because wouldn’t that be one way for all of us to overcome the collective denial of illness and death? To be around people who are near death at different stages of our lives.

There has been movement towards this in Alzheimer’s care. Some of the recent research about the mutual good of relationships between toddlers and Alzheimer’s patients has given rise to programs integrating nursery schools into memory care facilities.

Alive Inside, the documentary that won People’s Choice at Sundance in 2014, also has inspired a host of youth projects including pairing high schools with care centers for experiential based service learning. I’ve included a link to the trailer below, and I highly recommend the entire film.

I do believe we have something to gain in shedding our denial and making peace with death over a whole lifetime rather than seeing it as a task assigned upon getting a terminal diagnosis. In one of my favorite books covering this topic, Anam Cara, John O’Donahue makes a case for just that.

To continually transfigure the faces of your own death ensures that, at the end of your life, your physical death will be no stranger, robbing you against your will of the life the you have had; you will know its face intimately. Since you have overcome your fear, your death will be a meeting with a lifelong friend from the deepest side of your own nature.  

One thing I know for sure having drawn close to my mother during her illness and her final days is that I am less afraid of death and more excited about life than I have been in a long time. This is not what I expected, but it is true. I love life more, and I’m less afraid. 

Because of course even endings aren’t all bad. Once we learn we can stand them, we see a whole lot more, including the person we love, including beauty and life and grace, even in this.

Thank you for reading,

Laura

If you would like to receive Tending for Endings each Friday, please leave your email address below. It is ad free and cost free and I will not share your information. My aim is to help build community and conversation around end-of-life matters so we can better support one another. If you would like to leave comments and you don’t see a place to do so below, click here. You may also reach me at laura@laurastavoe.com.

First Name

Last Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you’re human: