As She Was Dying

When someone dies suddenly, we are shocked and shattered at the contrast of a person living their lives as usual one moment and dying the next. But when a person dies from disease, the dying is there for a long time, silent and gradual, but ever-present, slowly consuming all those things that make up a human life.

The potting soil and birdseed bought in the Fall sit unopened in the garage. The check that didn’t clear the bank is the tithe for February. Food grows old in the refrigerator, hidden behind Ensure and Boost. A get-well card to a lifelong friend is on the kitchen table, unaddressed, needing a stamp.

All those things are to be expected. A person carrying what little weight they have left as cancer isn’t able to do what they used to, to enjoy what once gave them pleasure.

But with Barbara, of whom I speak, I can say that in many ways, she died as she had lived. That in her dying, the things that made her who she was were still very present, very evident, a light that made this awful thing called death bearable.

Barbara was a gentle, humble, generous, and grateful person. She wasn’t selfish or demanding. She didn’t need or want the spotlight, choosing instead to put others first. Even in her last days, when the cancer was making her sick and weak and miserable, she said, “Now shut that door so my coughing won’t keep you awake.” She thanked everyone for staying with her, taking care of her. When people called and she responded, “I’m not having a good day today”, she’d almost always say, “Now, tell me how you're doing.”

She had a marvelous host of friends, evidenced by all the cards, calls, visits, gestures of support and care. What’s remarkable is that she never stopped making new friends: from exercise partners, to healthcare workers, the receptionist at West Clinic she loaned books to, so many of her neighbors, and even in her last weeks, becoming a prayer partner and counselor to her caregivers at the King's Daughters and Sons Home.

As in her life she had been so generous with her time and possessions, loving to buy and give gifts, little thank-yous, in one moment of wakefulness, she said, “I really need to get that pound cake made for Joannie.”

Barbara was not prone to exaggerate, having no need to make a big drama out of the things that happened to her. She didn’t, at least as far as we know, forecast or dwell a lot on the future or the past; she really was able to live in the moment, accepting its pain or pleasure simply, without theatrics or pessimism. If she felt good, she’d say, as she did many times on the phone, “I’m just fine and dandy.” Even as she lay there too weak to raise her head, she said, “No, I’m not depressed. I’m just beat up.”

As in her life, caring for the basic needs of those unable to do so for themselves, this was true in her dying, though the roles were reversed. But her tender ways with the residents of the home, and her loving care as a mother and grandmother had taught us all how to care for her in these last two weeks, which so many of us were privileged to do.

She loved to go places and almost always said “yes” to any invitation. Though depleted and tired as she was in this last month, she went to a high school play with her good friend Barbara, spent Easter day at Tony’s, and came to a graduation party at our house.

The day before she died, she started talking about going somewhere. She asked Marie what kind of flowers go in a corsage for a wedding, adamant to know the name for the specific one she was thinking of. A little while later she said we’d have to go to the wedding without her; she wasn’t up to it, to get Mary Catherine to come stay with her, that Betty couldn’t drive at night. Later still, she said she needed to get ready, to put on her makeup, that she was going to the wedding. Marie and I looked at each other and smiled, enjoying this talk of a wedding, thinking it was some memory from the past.

But now I think it wasn’t a memory at all, but was indeed for her a reality. She was going to a wedding. She was going to join her mother who had told her a few days before, “Be sure to call before you come.” She was indeed putting on her makeup to go to a wedding, but not an earthly wedding, rather the wedding in heaven spoken of in Revelations which says:

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” And he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

We know by her words and her life that she was invited. That she is there, alive and whole, free from weakness and suffering, joining those who rejoice and are glad and give glory to the Lamb on the throne.