dyingtohelp.com

Four weeks ago my mother told us that things would get bad as she neared the final days of her life.

As always, Bette knew what was ahead and tried to prepare her kids. Once a mother, always a mother, even when your “kids” are middle-aged adults.

“You need you to know that it will be very hard for you caring for me. Harder than anything you can imagine.”

“Mom, we’ll be fine, we’ll be OK,” I said.

“You won’t be OK. But as you’re going through those final days know that I will be OK. I’ll be so heavily medicated that I won’t be aware of the pain or any of the other awful physical things that go along with the very end.”

As I lay outside Bette’s bedroom all day on Friday listening to her gasping and choking on the fluid in her lungs, I remembered what she said. As I tried to put the morphine into her cheek, only to have her choke on it because she was losing the ability to swallow, I remembered what she said.

And when Bette stopped breathing altogether on Saturday afternoon, I remembered my mother told us that  there would be a day like this when  “the adventure would be over.”

Psychologists say adventurous experiences can be negative, like fear, and positive, like being immersed in the flow.  There’s nothing more adventurous than helping someone you love die. There’s no day sadder than when they do.

“I’ve always believed that there is something after this life. Now I don’t know. And it’s making me scared,” said Bette.

“When living my life I guess I just unthinkingly accepted religious beliefs about the concepts of heaven, everlasting souls, the “white light,” joining loved ones who have died before us,” mused Bette.  Like saying prayers these beliefs are ingrained from a lifetime of worship, yet rarely do we think about the words behind the prayers or interrogate the meaning of the beliefs.

But when you know you’re going to die soon, you think about those concepts – and many are hard to believe.   There’s no proof, after all.  Just conjecture. Is anyone really sure that Jesus, Muhammad, Budda, Joseph Smith, Jr., Confucius, Zoroaster or any other holy men had the inside skinny on what really happens after you die?

Bette talked about this fear and her doubts last night, coming to no conclusions, simply acknowledging that as the cancer weakens her body, so does her belief about afterlife.

Then today the retired Monsignor of her church, who she traveled with, who helped her through her grief after her husband died, and who she hasn’t talked with since his retirement a few years ago, called out of the blue.

“I heard you were sick,” he said. “You must be scared.”

“I am,’ she said.

“It’s going to be alright. You’ll be fine,” he said.

Monsignor Tosti’s call comforted Bette and provided much needed reassurance that whatever happens, she will be fine.  It didn’t resolve her doubts about belief, but it did strengthen her faith.

(Note: this discussion from last week when Bette still alert.)