I have
more life in me than my mother, who died a long-sought and in the end, merciful
death at age 59…but I look forward to the end of life for different reasons.
She made decisions, both conscious and unconscious that kept her short life
uncomfortable if not agonizing, almost featureless except for her pain and far,
far from her control at every stage.
I recall as a child making a
conscious choice “not to catch” the sicknesses that kept my mother bed-bound
much of the time. I didn’t know the names of her ailments then, but among them
were: migraines, insomnia, hypertension, diabetes, various addictions with the
accompanying disorders those behaviors brought and finally, debilitating and
fatal heart disease.
As for me, so far,
so good.
When she died and I saw her body at
the funeral home, I realized that she also had carpal tunnel syndrome. Her
hands were curled inward as if she, who transcribed court reporter notes, were
fixed for eternity in the downward stroke of a typewriter keyboard. She didn’t
know she had carpal tunnel; nor did we. So much of her life was endured in ill
health that the unceasing ache of carpal tunnel with throbbing thumbs and
burning forearms must have blended into the other constancy of her pain.
Like my mother, my career is based
on having my hands on the keyboard. Many years ago I worked as a temp for hand
surgeons, transcribing their immense dictation on every patient. Ironically, as
I transcribed the details of surgery on hands and arms crippled by carpal
tunnel syndrome and the requisite surgery and rehab, my own hands began their
long decline into my own version of the typing-tinged angst of carpal tunnel.
Proud as I am of “not catching” her
other ailments, I notice that, along with carpal tunnel syndrome, I do have
more and more minor aches and pains as I approach old age. No doubt my mother
had some of these same arthritic degeneration, again, unnoticed in her
extraordinary overlay of almost endless agony. My modest aches and pains are
now a feature of day-to-day life, remitting reluctantly when I do yoga or
lounge in hot water. Ice packs, naps and aspirin help, too.
As I age, I feel a deep kinship with
my mother. We were blessed to have made our peace long before she died and
we’ve grown closer still over the years that she’s been gone. When I look in
the mirror, I see her body, grown lush with the love of food and the act of
eating. My father often said that Mother dug her grave with her spoon and I
recognize similar behavior in myself. Well trained in the indolent lifestyle of
a Southern Belle by my very fussy and impossible to please grandmother, I find
that despite my best efforts, some days the only activity I get is walking to
the refrigerator or pushing the microwave start button.
And though I'm older than my mother
was when she died, I’ve not yet been called to the other side, so I’ve got work
to do here. I’m grateful that there are ways for me to work with those who are
dying; counseling a grieving acquaintance or calling a stranger to discuss
Hospice care. Being there for a friend who must have her assistive animal put
down or hearing an acquaintance’s last happy words as she recognizes the
afterlife that she didn’t expect. I live a life laced with death. And happily
so. It is the work I am on earth to do. Working with death and dying…and
writing about it.
A book I read – Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn – by
Kris Radish, features a character who discovers that “…the secret of life is really death…” That phrase sums up my
philosophy on death. I’ve also seen a reference to Friedrich
Nietzsche for a similar quote.
And it strengthens my belief that death brings us the most important
lesson we’re here to learn…or else it
wouldn’t happen right at the very end.
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