Tending to Endings (four)
I am no expert on death. I am the new traveler reporting on unexpected discoveries, not the one writing the guidebook. For that, there are people who have worked in this field for decades and who know so much more than I do.
Even so, I feel compelled to share things that made a difference if for no other reason than I could’ve so easily missed them. There is so much we cannot control about death, namely, the loss itself as it barrels on towards us. Sometimes that loss is so big it seems like nothing we do could possibly matter.
In the summer of 2016, I arrived in Portland to visit my friend Susan when there was no longer any chance of her recovering from a brain aneurysm. The family was waiting to remove life support until the following evening when more loved ones would arrive.
I felt privileged to be in that room, but not all that helpful. I mostly wandered from the chair by her bed to the window to the bathroom to the coffee cart and back by Susan’s side. The loss of my friend was already palpable.
Friends began texting me things to tell Susan. I would sit by her and read them. This felt like one small, good thing: reading love aloud and then replying to the sender that I had done so. Days before I had been the one pacing in Boise and my friends Lori and Mary were reading my messages. It mattered.
Not everyone can be in the room. Whether because of distance or timing or because the person needs calm or wants privacy or because most of us collect more friends over a lifetime than can fit around a deathbed.
After the texts I moved on to the messages left on Susan’s Facebook page. A friend dressed in purple wrote “I finally listened to the podcast you sent me about Prince!” Her first-graders held up artwork of birds and messages of love. College friends recounted funny memories. Those of us in the room were reminded of how big Susan’s circle was, how colorful and full her life.
Last January, a few weeks after my mom went on hospice care, I was struggling to find ways to bring more relationship into our days. Conversations, even with close friends were stressful for Mom due to the progression of Alzheimer’s. She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly and so she largely avoided social interaction. This was not my mom’s nature, but rather, a symptom of her disease. Mom had a huge circle of close friends, and in her regular state of mind, she would never back away from them.
Mom’s 80th birthday was coming up in August. I talked with my sisters and dad about an idea for an early gift. My mom had often created photo/story books for her grandchildren. Whenever my sons would visit Chicago or Maui or when she would visit Idaho, she would buy a three ring binder and slip photos with a story about their adventures into plastic sleeves.
I asked friends to email a photo of themselves along with one thing they learned from Jane. I included that she was living with Alzheimer’s and cancer and we felt this early gift would be good medicine. I said, short was best as mom could not process a great deal of text, but that her sense of humor was intact. Mostly, I wanted her to see their smiling faces.
It took less than a day for friends to begin sending responses.
Once messages began arriving I saw what a gift this was for all of us. My dad and sisters and I knew my mom’s life was rich, but we had been so focused on the day-to-day. Their words reminded me of my mom’s whole story and helped me to feel connected to her wider community.
Entries came from former students and fellow peace activists and and grandchildren and bridge group members and college friends and a refugee family my mom had helped resettle. We ended up needing a second binder.
Mom’s response was more than I could’ve hoped. She pored over the photos of friends. She asked me to read entries to her over and over. She smiled.
Eventually she laughed, and said, “These are so nice. If I keep reading them I’ll get a big head.” She began referring to them as her big head books. She wanted me to tell all of her friends that they each deserved a book just like it.
This of course is not a new idea. People create videos and quilts and playlists and piles of greeting cards. But, I am newly aware of how this small thing turned out to be a big thing. Not only for my mom who recognized her life in all those smiling faces. Not only for the family. But for all of us who knew three months later–when Jane Stavoe was no longer on the planet–that we had expressed our love.
In August, Dad asked my nephew Sam to create a digital version and we sent out a link of Mom’s Big Head Book to family and friends on her birthday, the day she would’ve turned 80.
This morning, reminded of all this, I pulled up a YouTube video my friend Susan’s coworker sent to the hospital when Susan first fell ill. Students sit in the grass and tell their favorite things about their teacher: she is creative and kind and funny. She teaches them about birds. She teaches songs. And then they sing “Alligator Pie”. Mostly they say they love her and they want her to get better. One first-grader says, “Mrs. Gardner is almost the best teacher I’ve ever had in my whole life,” and I know Susan is laughing.
Not everyone can be in the room. But you can always squeeze in more love.
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Thank you Laura you made my day today with these very rich and well deserved memoirs of your mom. She was larger than life and she still lives on. Thank you again
Thank you Laura. Your mom sounds like a profoundly amazing and wise woman who packed so much into the stream of life. I wish I had known her. I love these ideas for providing comfort and end of life memory review; it was something I was taught as a hospice nurse, to help people look back at their lives.
I remember how rich and full the memorial was for Susan. I went to it with the intention to be a listener to other’s stories and whatever they needed to express. That didn’t feel like much but I was doing my part to ‘be like Susan.’ To embody her qualities when I felt helpless and useless. As I listened to the stories I was inspired by how important small kindnesses are. How much they mean when someone is afraid.
We don’t all live big, rich lives. But we all have the chance to be kind. We don’t know how many people we touch but each one matters, and each kindness has ripple effects in the world.
My own effort now, while I am still healthy and hope to have many years left, is to mend quilts that hold memories for others. It is a tangible way to bring memories and comfort, as the big head books do.
I have friends who are struggling with grief and loss of parents. I will share your blog with them as a way they can process their feelings and find comfort.
Thank you again for what you are doing. The ripple effect is palpable.
Thank you for your beautiful reflections, Jane. And yes to those small kindnesses. They so often end up being the big things. Also, your quilts are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing them and your stories.