Leona Alline McMillan
Death Watch
August 21, 2013 at 12:04am
Friends and family have died before, but this was the first time I was part of the death watch: watching and waiting for a life to end. Waiting, both hoping and dreading.
I could say all kinds of things about my grandmother's death, but they are just words, all the hard truths we all already know. Or we think we know.
The way I thought I knew that "Life is short" until my father died, and then I really "got" it. Until that time I had no clue just how short it really is, or how quickly it can end.
Because knowing intellectually that it's hard to watch someone you love literally wither away to a mere husk of their former selves does not even come close to experiencing it. Maybe that's what all of life is, just a bunch of cliches that you think you understand, until one day one of those cliches raises up, hits you like a brick, and knocks the breath from your lungs. You're left sagging on rubber knees, groping for support, trying to suck air into a deflated sack while the mind reels and in that moment of blind panic, you really know it.
Seeing the body shrivel, the flesh sag... we think we know what age does to us. Then you see it at the very end, the final outrageous indignities of flesh as thin and dry as tissue paper, seeming to melt away to reveal the skeleton underneath. The deep red-purple bruises that form as the circulation slows and ends in the extremeties. The way the lips recede, and the cheeks collapse, and the eyes grow cloudy and unfocused in a dark hollow socket.
The worst of it is witnessing the helplessness. Seeing her arms drawn up, hands claw-like, a mouth moving but unable to make any sounds but those of pain and confusion and who knows what else. Looking into a pale watery eye and not knowing if you are seen, recognized.... or if you are merely another stranger in an endless parade of strangers.
Mostly she slept, or stared into space. Once, when I sat beside the bed, stroking her hair, and talking softly to her, she opened one eye, seemed to start — I thought, she sees me — and then she tried to hit me in the face. Then she turned her head and tried to spit at the floor as if something disgusted her. I knew not to take it personally, but I shuddered, wondering what she thought she saw, if I had scared her or hurt her in some way without realizing it.
The next day she looked at me and she smiled. But then she pointed at the ceiling, and grinned even wider. I don't know what she was seeing, but I was grateful to see her smile. One of the things that was hardest for my mom, sister and me was knowing that Granny had suffered from terrible nightmares and hallucinations for many years, and fearing what might be happening inside her head that we could not protect her from nor comfort her against.
I watched a tech give Granny a sponge bath; the girl was very young but very kind, and though she was as gentle as she could be, it was a terrible thing to watch. I cried until i had to go sit outside the curtain.
I cried to imagine the embarrassment and indignity of being stripped and handled so intimately by some stranger, without my permission, unable to express anything at all beyond a weak moan. Feeling so completely and utterly at the mercy of other people, unable to do for myself, unable to ask for even a sip of water. Depending on someone else to feed me, turn me, pull up another blanket, change my diaper, clean me.....
I have such complicated and mixed emotions about God, about the possibilities of an afterlife. There are the things I was taught, the things I've rejected, and the limbo in-between: things I choose to believe because not believing them would be too painful, and the things I believe because on some deep level they just seem true and right.
But if there is a kind and loving god, could he not allow us some other ending not so terrible, not so utterly humiliating? I know -- I believe -- that life is a thing to be experienced, not some goal to be reached or a game to be won. And if that's all it is -- if death, inevitable and natural, is the end — I don't think that's so bad. Our time on earth and what we've done with it is what matters.
But I looked at my grandmother and thought, is this it? All we suffer and endure and overcome, and this is what it all comes down to? This... indignity? Because that's the word that keeps circling in my head. Indignity. To come to this place where we are helpless, wordless, trapped inside a decaying body, simply waiting for it to end. It made me angry. It made me feel scooped out and hollow.
Then i thought, maybe the end is so terrible simply to make us willing to let go.
I prayed so hard that she would slip away quickly, because imagining her that way — dragging on and on for days and weeks or months — was too terrible to endure.
Watching my mother as she watched and waited, was a whole other torment. My mother is so strong, and seeing her cry is like seeing snow on the beach, or the ocean on fire. It puts the whole natural order of the universe at risk. What can i depend on, if not my mother's strength?
Seeing her pain was bad enough, but I also looked at her and saw the future. One day, I will be watching and waiting at her death bed. I'll be thinking of all the things I want to say and want to hear her say, and knowing that words will never be enough to tell her how much i love her and will miss her. Because just as i told my granny every time we spoke, are the words ever enough? Did I show her enough? Did she really feel it?
I wish i could believe that we go on, in some way, shape or form, but i think it more likely that our energy, our life force, goes out to join with the energy of the universe. I choose to believe that as our spirit rejoins creation, all our pains and regrets burn away, and what is left is a perfect peaceful knowledge that, at least for a brief moment, is allowed to glimpse the big picture, and therefore understand how our life fit into the universe.
While I think it unlikely that there is a heaven of harps and clouds, I really would like to believe that my grandmother is there, reunited with all the ones she has loved and lost. But the only thing I really know for sure is that her nightmares are over, her pain is over, her fear is over. And she was loved.
August 21, 2013 at 12:04am
Friends and family have died before, but this was the first time I was part of the death watch: watching and waiting for a life to end. Waiting, both hoping and dreading.
I could say all kinds of things about my grandmother's death, but they are just words, all the hard truths we all already know. Or we think we know.
The way I thought I knew that "Life is short" until my father died, and then I really "got" it. Until that time I had no clue just how short it really is, or how quickly it can end.
Because knowing intellectually that it's hard to watch someone you love literally wither away to a mere husk of their former selves does not even come close to experiencing it. Maybe that's what all of life is, just a bunch of cliches that you think you understand, until one day one of those cliches raises up, hits you like a brick, and knocks the breath from your lungs. You're left sagging on rubber knees, groping for support, trying to suck air into a deflated sack while the mind reels and in that moment of blind panic, you really know it.
Seeing the body shrivel, the flesh sag... we think we know what age does to us. Then you see it at the very end, the final outrageous indignities of flesh as thin and dry as tissue paper, seeming to melt away to reveal the skeleton underneath. The deep red-purple bruises that form as the circulation slows and ends in the extremeties. The way the lips recede, and the cheeks collapse, and the eyes grow cloudy and unfocused in a dark hollow socket.
The worst of it is witnessing the helplessness. Seeing her arms drawn up, hands claw-like, a mouth moving but unable to make any sounds but those of pain and confusion and who knows what else. Looking into a pale watery eye and not knowing if you are seen, recognized.... or if you are merely another stranger in an endless parade of strangers.
Mostly she slept, or stared into space. Once, when I sat beside the bed, stroking her hair, and talking softly to her, she opened one eye, seemed to start — I thought, she sees me — and then she tried to hit me in the face. Then she turned her head and tried to spit at the floor as if something disgusted her. I knew not to take it personally, but I shuddered, wondering what she thought she saw, if I had scared her or hurt her in some way without realizing it.
The next day she looked at me and she smiled. But then she pointed at the ceiling, and grinned even wider. I don't know what she was seeing, but I was grateful to see her smile. One of the things that was hardest for my mom, sister and me was knowing that Granny had suffered from terrible nightmares and hallucinations for many years, and fearing what might be happening inside her head that we could not protect her from nor comfort her against.
I watched a tech give Granny a sponge bath; the girl was very young but very kind, and though she was as gentle as she could be, it was a terrible thing to watch. I cried until i had to go sit outside the curtain.
I cried to imagine the embarrassment and indignity of being stripped and handled so intimately by some stranger, without my permission, unable to express anything at all beyond a weak moan. Feeling so completely and utterly at the mercy of other people, unable to do for myself, unable to ask for even a sip of water. Depending on someone else to feed me, turn me, pull up another blanket, change my diaper, clean me.....
I have such complicated and mixed emotions about God, about the possibilities of an afterlife. There are the things I was taught, the things I've rejected, and the limbo in-between: things I choose to believe because not believing them would be too painful, and the things I believe because on some deep level they just seem true and right.
But if there is a kind and loving god, could he not allow us some other ending not so terrible, not so utterly humiliating? I know -- I believe -- that life is a thing to be experienced, not some goal to be reached or a game to be won. And if that's all it is -- if death, inevitable and natural, is the end — I don't think that's so bad. Our time on earth and what we've done with it is what matters.
But I looked at my grandmother and thought, is this it? All we suffer and endure and overcome, and this is what it all comes down to? This... indignity? Because that's the word that keeps circling in my head. Indignity. To come to this place where we are helpless, wordless, trapped inside a decaying body, simply waiting for it to end. It made me angry. It made me feel scooped out and hollow.
Then i thought, maybe the end is so terrible simply to make us willing to let go.
I prayed so hard that she would slip away quickly, because imagining her that way — dragging on and on for days and weeks or months — was too terrible to endure.
Watching my mother as she watched and waited, was a whole other torment. My mother is so strong, and seeing her cry is like seeing snow on the beach, or the ocean on fire. It puts the whole natural order of the universe at risk. What can i depend on, if not my mother's strength?
Seeing her pain was bad enough, but I also looked at her and saw the future. One day, I will be watching and waiting at her death bed. I'll be thinking of all the things I want to say and want to hear her say, and knowing that words will never be enough to tell her how much i love her and will miss her. Because just as i told my granny every time we spoke, are the words ever enough? Did I show her enough? Did she really feel it?
I wish i could believe that we go on, in some way, shape or form, but i think it more likely that our energy, our life force, goes out to join with the energy of the universe. I choose to believe that as our spirit rejoins creation, all our pains and regrets burn away, and what is left is a perfect peaceful knowledge that, at least for a brief moment, is allowed to glimpse the big picture, and therefore understand how our life fit into the universe.
While I think it unlikely that there is a heaven of harps and clouds, I really would like to believe that my grandmother is there, reunited with all the ones she has loved and lost. But the only thing I really know for sure is that her nightmares are over, her pain is over, her fear is over. And she was loved.
2202 Cabin Hill Road, #A . Nashville, Tennessee 37214 . 615-424-2375
