the last day
I've never written anything about Lee's death. I've re-lived it so vividly, so many times, that it's felt like I did not yet have enough space between me and The Day to write about it. I still can't. I still don't want to. It's a raw wound, and I may never be able to write much of it. But a friend's husband is dying, today or in a day or two or three, and as she tells me about what is happening, I am right back there again, in that hospital room, reliving the worst day of my life. Specifically the moment when Lee looked around the room, realized there were quite a few people there, all of whom loved him, but people one would not typically expect to be there at the same time at some normal hospital visit, and asked me, "Am I going to die today?" This was the second worst moment in my life. There is no answer to that question that does not sear the heart with a sharp, burning knife. There is no way around that moment, there is only through. Through any remaining denial. Through any fear. All the way through. And it hurts like a mother fucking fucker. Fuck.
So unless you are really close to that person and deeply care for that person (and everyone there with me and Lee's son was close), you might ask yourself why you are really, truly there. Most people can honestly answer that they want the dying person to know they are loved and supported in a real, physically-there way. I get that. But if it is simply that YOU need to know that the dying person or the dying person's closest loved ones THINK you care, then leave. If you just think, for your own sake, that you SHOULD be there out of a sense of duty, then leave. It's too late for any of that. My friend and her daughter are with their dying husband and father and, at the same time, having to fight off toxic relatives who couldn't be bothered to come through any of the earlier, serious stuff they had to go through, but feel they "should be there" in this horrible moment. No one should be obliged to put up with that. The end. A not so good memory, but trying to go through, not around.
So unless you are really close to that person and deeply care for that person (and everyone there with me and Lee's son was close), you might ask yourself why you are really, truly there. Most people can honestly answer that they want the dying person to know they are loved and supported in a real, physically-there way. I get that. But if it is simply that YOU need to know that the dying person or the dying person's closest loved ones THINK you care, then leave. If you just think, for your own sake, that you SHOULD be there out of a sense of duty, then leave. It's too late for any of that. My friend and her daughter are with their dying husband and father and, at the same time, having to fight off toxic relatives who couldn't be bothered to come through any of the earlier, serious stuff they had to go through, but feel they "should be there" in this horrible moment. No one should be obliged to put up with that. The end. A not so good memory, but trying to go through, not around.
Comments
When my brother Glenn was getting sicker from AIDS he said to me once, "Whatever happens, I don't want a semi-circle of people crying around my bed when it's time for me to die. I've been in friends' hospital rooms with that happening and it was such a drag for my friends."
So, your post reminded me of that. We don't need to add the pressure to the person who's passing on.
Love 2 U, Jules.