Category — death

Before I even begin the post I need to state this plainly: I did not write this to garner pity or condolences. I’m writing because I’m curious about my own thoughts and about yours.

To be blunt, my Grandad is dying. He knows this, the DNR is signed and he’s in a good frame of mind all things considered.

When I first found out, my immediate and emotional response was to get myself on a plane to Ontario and go see him and the rest of the family. I can’t change the inevitable, but I hoped I could maybe do something useful (pretty nebulous thought really) and more selfishly there is a part of me that thought, “If I don’t see him now, I’ll feel horribly guilty later.”

Apparently some relatives of my Grandad’s in the U.K. had the same idea and wanted to fly here to see him. My Grandad was not at all happy about this and said no.

For my grandparents (and probably most people),  visitors create an obligation to entertain – to be civil, polite, cheerful and, well, entertaining. When these same visitors are there because you’re ill (and especially if you’re terminally ill) it creates the additional obligation of being kind, reassuring and soothing to alleviate any possible guilt your guests might feel about your illness or death.

And that last part is what bothers me now: how did something as personal as death become more about the people left behind and less about the person facing their own death?

How is my need to feel OK after he’s gone more important than his need now to spend whatever time remains to him with his wife of 60 years?

I’ve decided it isn’t.

Visitors are trying when you’re sick. They see you at your worst – weak, tired, loopy on pain medication, or just in pain and cranky. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be dying, but I can imagine the annoyance of having people seeking comfort and some kind of absolution from me when all I want to do is sleep or maybe just daydream a bit.

I have no aversion to his being ill or even seeing him sick – he’s always going to be Grandad to me. My love, respect and regard for him will never change. However, whether or not I have an aversion to seeing him now, he has asked for space and quiet; denying him that and forcing him to endure a visit that will tire him so I can feel better would be extremely disrespectful.

So, I’m staying in Vancouver until I get that final phone call. I saw him last November when he was still reasonably well and we got to hang out, talk, poke fun at stuff and share a nice meal together.

I get updates from Mum about them and she’ll let me know the days they might be up for a brief phone call just to say hello and share a little news – otherwise that’s all.

It still makes me feel utterly useless, but all I can offer is whatever they ask for.

What are your thoughts?

I have just finished reading Neil Gaiman’s novel Anansi Boys.

If you haven’t read anything by Neil Gaiman, get yourself to the bookstore already! I doubt Neil (Mr. Gaiman?  Is there a correct way to refer to an author in your blog without sounding like a pretentious twit?) will ever read this, and if he does I hope this will please him: I really, really enjoy your books and you’re in my top 10 of favourite authors.

Reading Anansi Boys got me to thinking about life and death – mostly death, but not in a morbid way.

This is a bit of a spoiler here, so skip this part if you want. At one point in the novel Fat Charlie’s (the main character) mother is dying in the hospital. Fat Charlie is sitting at her bedside when she suddenly says “Yellow bird.” Charlie doesn’t get it at first, but soon enough he hears a New Orleans jazz band marching through the hospital corriders playing “Yellow Bird“. The band comes to his mother’s room led by Fat Charlie’s father. Fat Charlie’s mother is utterly delighted and her hospital room is transformed. It is no longer just a place to die, but a place to celebrate life.

I think this is a pretty cool idea.

I’ve volunteered in hospitals and for the most part they are not terribly cheerful places. Things are clean and orderly (generally) and the staff is competent and usually kind and decent but it’s still a hospital. You’re still sick, maybe dying, and it can be a joyless job in such a silent and sterile place.

I looked into the jazz funeral or “funeral with music” and I think it’s a great idea – moreso if they bring it to the hospital and cheer the place up a little. Why should death be so dreary and silent? Why can’t it be met more bravely with some measure of joy? Who says giving up a sick body and moving on has to be sad?

For myself, I’m hoping to be cremated and scattered over the ocean with a piper walking up and down the beach playing something suitably somber – and then after I want a big spread of food, whisky, beer, more food and lots of great music to send me off to whatever hereafter there is. I want photos of me and my friends and family all around, I want stories exchanged, toasts to me, to a life well lived, to love and everything else worth having. I want people to just do what they need to grieve and celebrate; cry, laugh, sing, dance, scream, whatever it takes.

I want the people I leave behind to not feel as though they’ve been left behind and to keep living. I’m not sure what comes after; maybe I’d still be able to see everyone and hear things. If that’s how it is, then I’ll be making my presence known if the people I love stop living just because I did.

This is all sort of macabre I guess, but I don’t mean it to be. I fully intend to live a good long time – I just want my send off to be as interesting and fun as getting to the end was.