“I have no fear of death,
except I hate waiting for it.”
Doug Stanhope
My mother would be in full agreement with these words by American comedian Doug Stanhope. Mom is not afraid to die, but she has made it quite clear that the process of dying is taking much too long. It’s ironic that her mother, on her own deathbed in 1992, said the same thing. We may have control over our attitude about death, but we have little control over the dying process itself.
As I write this, I’m sitting next to my Mom’s bed at the Villa Siena Retirement Community. It’s 7:08 p.m. on Wednesday, August 17th. For the past several years, at this time in the evening, I would be preparing to FaceTime with Mom. At the beginning of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, instead of calling on the telephone each evening, we would visit via FaceTime. It was a weak replacement for personal visits, but it served us well. Even as life began to return to some semblance of normalcy, we continued our 7:15 p.m. FaceTime chats. We don’t do this any more.
Mom’s doctor informed us this morning that Mom has entered into the “active dying” phase of hospice care, meaning that her body is beginning to shut down. It won’t be long before she leaves us. While it is sad to see, any sense of grief is overshadowed by a tremendous sense of gratitude. Mom is ready to die. She is not afraid of death. She welcomes it as an inevitable part of the cycle of life. Her positive attitude toward her impending death has enabled my siblings and me to embrace the same positive attitude. Mom is dying. I’m happy… for her.
Mom surprised us today by asking to get up. Using the wheelchair provided by hospice, we rolled her out into the Villa Siena courtyard where she enjoyed the warm afternoon sun and some music. Mom and I even had an opportunity to dance one last dance… sort of. When the Little Richard song “Good Golly Miss Molly” came on, I couldn’t help but take my mother’s hands and move a little. Very little. When the song ended, Mom smiled.
Now she’s back in bed enjoying a deep sleep. We don’t know how much time we have left with Mom. From seeing her laying in bed, one might think that she could pass tonight. It’s also possible that she could live for another few days. The timeline is in God’s hands, not ours, but we still have the opportunity to be with Mom, to share in her journey toward death, and to remember, with gratitude, the blessing she has been, continues to be, and will continue to be to us.
