September 16, 2006 08:44 AM
Thoughts on Dying
Over dinner yesterday evening, my son and I were talking about dying. I was talking about my mother, who is 78, has Alzheimer's Disease (final stages), a heart condition, and has had three strokes. She is unable to communicate or take care of any of her own needs. She resides in a wonderful nursing home and is in hospice care. We're not sure when she will die, of course, but her doctors suspect it will be sometime in the next six months or so.
So, anyway, my son and I were talking about dying. He's nearly 12, and he understands that Grandma is dying and that although we may be sad when it happens, she's lived a long, good life. We have all been prepared for her to die for a while now. Then we talked about my Dad--a fairly healthy, 80-year-old man who still lives alone and drives and has some, but not any major, medical issues. He's two years older than my mother, yet, if he were to die I'd be pretty shocked and upset, although he has already lived past the average life expectancy for a male in the U.S. I think it comes down to what you expect. Life experience tells us that your grandparents die first, then your parents, then you and your siblings die. But of course, life isn't so predictable sometimes. And when people die out of the order in which we expect, it can throw us for quite the emotional loop.
I was twelve years old the first time someone in my life died. She was the younger sister of my close friend, and she was killed in a car accident when she was ten. We all cried at school, and it felt so strange to have her just not there. It was as if she just disappeared. I didn't think about the accident, I didn't think about her dying. She was just gone one day. I was 22 the next time a friend died. Another accident. I cried and screamed and pounded my fists on the ground and yelled at God. Then I wiped it from my mind a few weeks later, and tried not to think about it. It just hurt too much to remember him, and my mind just wouldn't let me go there for a long time. When I finally thought about it, a few years later, I allowed myself to truly grieve. I wept for weeks.
I always thought I wanted to die when I was old--really old, like 100. Now, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. As I watch my mother deteriorate, life and death take on new meanings. I'm still just trying to decipher what those meanings are to me.
Comments
I am absolutely in love with your writing!
Posted by: Avonlea Montague at November 21, 2006 11:36 PM
