On Death and Dying

Tonight I attended a Celebration of Life service for a very dear friend. Tomorrow we will all go to his funeral and burial. Death is not my favorite thing, but as I was praying for his wife and family before the service, I was reminded that it is, after all, the end game. It's what we should be shooting for, since it's the only way to Heaven.

The first funeral I remember attending was my grandfather's. I was 10 when he died of lung cancer. Even at that young age, I recall the sadness I felt. My mom's parents lived in Illinois and we lived in Alabama. I was lucky if I saw them once a year. I was fully aware that I not only missed my grandpa, I also missed making the kind of memories with him that my cousins who lived near him did.

When I was engaged, my mom made the switch from ER nursing to hospice. When she talked to me about it, she said that she was getting too old for the kind of physical stress ER nursing put on her. With all the wisdom of my 25 years, plus a Masters Degree in Counseling, I remember warning her that although hospice nursing may not be as much physical stress, it would indeed be an emotional one. 

Even though I was worried for her, God knew what He was doing. I already knew my mom was pretty great, but her hospice care for patients was excellent. She had a gift not many people have.  In the years that followed, she hospiced her sister, her brother, and then watched two more brothers die.

I remember that the first to go after she started hospice, was my grandma, who died peacefully, in her own home, just the way she wanted. When Nelson and I (only 6 months into marriage at the time) arrived in Illinois, my mom asked me to go to the funeral home with her to dress my grandma. She was newly into hospice at that time, so she hadn't talked about it much. I was a little hesitant to say the least. "Grandma didn't want anyone else to see her undressed," she explained. Knowing what I did about my grandma, I knew that was the truth. I just wasn't sure I wanted to be the one to help her do it. However, I didn't have the heart to have my mom go through something like that on her own, so off we went. 

I don't remember much about the room. Seems to me it was a very sterile and low lit environment, with one bright light on my grandmother's body laying on a cold, steel table. The first order of business was to get her stockings on. 

"Stockings mom?! No one is even going to see her legs in the coffin." 

She assured me that that was what her mother wanted, so that was what we did. Have you ever tried to put stockings on a dead body? I hope not. Let me assure you, it's no easy task. Shoot, putting stockings on a live body isn't a piece of cake, which explains why no one these days wears them. Her legs were stiff and cold - preserving the body and such. The two of us struggled mightily to lift those legs, pull up those stockings, and get them straight. What I remember is the two of us laughing at ourselves in this most awkward of situations. Laughing at how embarrassed my grandma would be knowing we were doing this, but also how grateful. We laughed until we cried, and we reminisced, and we were quiet. It occurred to me that however strange this circumstance appeared, it was exactly as it should be. I will be forever grateful for that one last opportunity to serve such a wonderful woman.

The community here, has a very interesting way of doing the graveside ceremony. The priest or pastor says some prayers like usual, but instead of everyone leaving afterwards, we stay to watch the coffin lowered, and then take turns throwing shovels of dirt to bury the loved one. 

The first time I saw this happen, I thought it incredibly strange and morbid. Now I understand and feel the same about that as I did about dressing my grandma. It's one last opportunity to serve that person. It provides a tremendous sense of closure and is truly a beautiful gesture. When I attend funerals that don't happen like this, I feel like I'm being cheated out of this ability to serve. 

Through the years my mom served as a hospice nurse, our dinner conversations often centered around death and the dying. It sounds awful, but it was actually better than her stories of holding brains in people's heads and the other types of things she had to do in the ER. What we all learned is that death can be beautiful. She said that without exception, the people with the greatest faith, have the most beautiful deaths. She relayed story after story of smiles on people's faces, of the dying person seeing a loved one come into the room to get them, holding on until the last child arrived to say his goodbye. It certainly made death seem a lot less scary to me.

Tonight, we honored the life of a man who loved the Lord with his whole heart. A healthy vivacious man, who somehow ended up with inoperable brain cancer, and lived much longer than any doctor thought he could. As I listened to the sharings, I knew this man is better off now. He is home. He is not in pain.  He will never be tired again. He was generous and loving and kind and energetic and athletic and vivacious. He was an inspiration and I hope people will say the same of me when I'm gone. I'm certainly going to try to live a life that would merit that. 

Today I'm grateful for a faith that assures me this life is not all there is. I'm grateful for a mom, who through her hospice experiences, taught me death doesn't have to be feared. I'm grateful for pulling stockings up on stiff legs. And, I'm grateful that tomorrow I will get to bury my friend.