On the manner of death...

Both of my parents died violent deaths, one somewhat worse than the other. Both of my wife's parents and also her stepmother died gentle deaths. Holding these two sets of dyings, one in each hand, I find myself weighing them, and wondering.

I think my mother, in the most prescient way possible, was horrified at the prospect of dying on a respirator. She coached those around her about her wishes and left each of us with copies of her living will and advance directives. When we cleaned out her house after her death we found stashed in various places the literature of independent death, more copies of living wills, and more advance directives, both formal and informal. It clearly weighed on her mind. And yet, agonizing on the respirator was how she spent the last week of her life.

My dad didn't worry overmuch about dying. He just didn't want to. He also had a set of living wills and advance directives, but I think he felt ambivalent about them - on the one hand, he didn't want to linger if that was the prospect, but on the other, he very decidedly wanted to keep living. In the end, he had a lot of pain, a lot of hospital, and a failing body; but after the experience with my mom, I was ready to say 'no' to the respirator and did so. Still, he died a hospital death with only me and the palliative care nurse present, with barely the wires and tubes taken away, the night before spent in an exhaustive struggle with a runaway heart and a death sentence of pneumonia.

My mother in law died after a long lingering bout with breast cancer. The day she died was filled with portent - it was Good Friday and the moon the night before was full. She died at home, in her bedroom, with her children and husband surrounding her and son Charles playing hymns softly on the guitar. In the end, she transitioned softly.

My father in law died when his time ran out, at 91, at the end of a process brought about by pulmonary hypertension and heart failure. The year before had been spent with much focus on his greatly swollen left leg, a nasty symptom of what was happening internally but a terrific distracter for us against what was really happening to him. His ending took place in a hospice, surrounded by his children, son Charles playing hymns softly on the guitar. We had copies of the Methodist hymnal but none of us had thought to bring a Bible - so I hunted through the hymnal and eventually found a passage of sorts, a kind of amalgam of different Bible verses that seemed to fit. So, I read it to him at the foot of his bed; shortly thereafter he left quietly.

Even my wife's stepmother, her father's 2nd wife, had a fatal stroke at home, sitting on her couch, surrounded by her beloved cats. She finished at the hospital, but really, her death happened at home in a way that I think she would have preferred.

A lot can happen in a year….

It's been quite a year since my last entry. My wife's father died in the Fall, and my own father, Hank, who was living with us, got progressively more ill over the Winter and died in February. Our 2nd son went off to medical school; our 1st son and his wife came back to take on a church in north Georgia, and our 3rd son struggled mightily with not being where he wanted to be. Things got progressively more squirrely at my workplace, serious talk of downsizing the library and getting rid of supportive staff, etc., and things just got too damn stressful for my wife at her job. So, we took each other's hand, smiled, and jumped.

Of course it wasn't quite that quick. It takes a bit of doing to get the wheels of retirement in motion; and my wife is still covering bases at her work while they search for a replacement for (unreplaceable) her. And we had to arrange a move out to my wife's family farm, and set up the terrace apartment in our Decatur home for ourselves, and find a renter for the upstairs where we had been living. And throw away a bunch of stuff, have a huge estate sale, and actually get a truck (actually, 3 trucks) and hire some young men and move. And figure out the money. And the health insurance. And figure out where our 3rd son, out of school, could live.

But we did it! So we are now happily downsized, with our mortgage partially offset, and enjoying an idyllic month thus far at The Farm. Quite a year….