Lifeline

My oldest and best friend has been watching his mother die slowly over the last few years. His Mom has been obese most of her life. Diabetes has stolen her energy, freedom, and eyesight. Each year she is carried to the hospital one more time than the year before. She really didn’t think she would make it to last Christmas. Now she is approaching another.

She has refused all meds but comfort care meds. No more insulin, heart pills, or drugs for hypertension. Just the fentanyl, an antiemetic, and something for acid reflux. She lies in bed and mostly sleeps. She has a bowel movement once a week, or they induce with a suppository. She doesn’t want my friend to clean the mess it makes because she says it affords her some dignity.

I talked to my friend last night. He said he was exhausted. He said he was more tired than he can ever remember being. He said he knew what it was going to be like when she died, but I wondered how anyone could know. He hoped for the best goodbye possible and some quality moments in her final days. I wondered how he would live in the vacuum that would exist after she is gone. He seemed to distract himself with the busy-ness and final details of death. I wondered when the moment would come for him to stop and come to grips with what was happening, ask himself how he fit into two lives that were such a part of one another.

He worried about her when she was in the assisted living apartment and spent most of his time there when she was ill with an infection or a complication of her condition. His sister died a few years back from an overdose. His brother is in town but has only dropped by once last week to see his Mom because they thought it was the end. His Mom and Dad have been divorced for over 20 years. His Dad is in town, but he doesn’t come by to see the grand-kids much.

She got out of the hospital a couple of weeks ago for a drug-resistant infection. The doctors thought she was going to die because she had stopped her meds, so they allowed her to move into a hospice facility. A day or so after she got there, her condition improved. The pain meds seem to lower her blood pressure, and she began to be more alert for more hours of the day. The doctors said she would have to move out of the hospice facility. In the state where they live, you only have five days to die.

If she doesn’t die fast enough, my friend will have to move her from hospice to his one-bedroom apartment. She will stay in the living room. He will have to get her hospital bed back out of storage and get it over to his place. He says at least he can sleep at night because he can check on her easily and not have to travel to her old place and spend the night in a chair.

The way we live affects the way we die. Our culture and society, the choices we make, and the hand we were first dealt all impact our dying. My friend hasn’t been a saint by any means, but he keeps trying to be the best person he can. He has been obese for many years and wants to get his weight down to something manageable. His wife is divorcing him after 20 years. It should be finalized this month. He’s in between jobs. He has three daughters. The oldest will be out of high school next year. I wonder how he will die, and who will be there to take care of him. I hope it’s me.

Before our parents die, we grieve knowing we will miss them. When they die, we have to experience it. We remember how we’ve lived our lives. We ponder what these people who’ve cared so much about us may have wanted for us - and maybe from us. We realize that in the same way we hope for our children, they hoped for us. Death certainly provides perspective.