On Life, Death, and The Tools
In early March, after several months of suffering, my mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 bladder cancer.
When It became clear that treatment wouldn’t improve her quality of life but just prolong the inevitable, Mom made her decision. Her words were, “I want a pleasant death.” We began home hospice.
Since I live (lived) next door, every morning I’d wake at 6am and make the short walk down the hall to her apartment. Once there I’d dispense her morning pain meds, empty her urine bag, feed her cats, then sit and chat with her for an hour or so until the daily caregiver came. Then I’d head back to my place and my “regular” life— seeing clients, working on my book, exercising, etc. At 6pm, when the caregiver left, I’d go back to Mom’s. I’d feed her cats again, empty their litter, give Mom her night meds, and sit with her until she fell asleep.
Each morning, as I walked down the hall to her apartment, I wondered if that day when I entered her bedroom I’d find her dead.
On the morning of April 17th, when she finally did pass away, thankfully, I was with her. I stroked her forehead and held her thin hand, telling her how much I love her and always would. I felt the last flutters of her pulse and stayed with her a long time in the stillness after. It was a painful, beautiful, and sacred moment that I was blessed to be graced with.
Witnessing my mother’s death so closely made me acutely conscious of my own mortality. Mom was 86 when she died; I’m twenty-two years younger. If I’m lucky enough to live as long as she did, I have a couple of decades left. What do I want to do with them?
The Jeopardy Tool comes to mind…
Picture yourself at the end of your life. See yourself on your deathbed. How would you feel about the way you’re currently living your life?
(Click here to read the Jeopardy Tool in full.)
Remember, death is the only certainty. As Mary Oliver, so famously asked in her poem, The Summer Day, “Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?”
