Mortality - Part 2

My good friend who has been sick for so long died on Friday.  The viewing is tomorrow and the funeral service is Wednesday.  One more reminder that we are only temporary residents of this planet and we all need to face our ultimate demise at one point or another. We had known each other since the 5th grade along with another.  The three of us were so close we were like the Three Musketeers.  Even though she had decided I was not good enough to talk to in the last two decades of her life, I still call her my good friend.

She was sick since 2008 when she developed a pain in her side which would not go away.  Her doctor sent her for tests and ultimately discovered that she had Primary Peritoneal Cancer, which is pretty rare. Most people discover it when their belly swells, but because of the pain they caught it somewhat early.  Her tumor had attached itself to the abdominal wall so she that is why she was experiencing symptoms sooner.  After that discovery she went through chemo several times and toward the end, there were many trips to the hospital to open up her kidneys that the cancer shut down. Despite the fact her obit says she went peacefully, our common friend said that was not the case.

As I mentioned she stopped talking to me shortly before I was married - to this day I have never discovered the reason why.  Even after many attempts to reach out to her, she remained silent to the end.  She did however, accept my friend request on Facebook so that may have been a silent acknowledgement of our continued friendship; at least I took it as such.  I suppose now I will have to wait until we meet again, in heaven or another life, to find out the reason. I will remember the many good times we had together. Rest in peace, Mary Al.

Mortality

It is a challenge at this time of life where we see our friends' parents die and we are reminded that death is there, waiting for us whether we like it or not. One of my childhood friends called me yesterday to inform me that her mother died.  Her mother was the same age as my mother and it suddenly makes me think of the mortality that we all have.  

When I remember my friend's mother, I chuckle, because she so patiently dealt with all of our practical jokes growing up with such grace.  I specifically remember one time when we were probably in sixth grade.  They had just gotten a new station wagon with all kinds of bells and whistles.  One of the features was a speed alarm that would go off when one got to a specific speed to prevent one from speeding.  My friend and I had been taken on an errand before dropping me back at my house.  We were told to sit in the car while her mother went in the store to pick up something.  I turned the speed alarm down very low, turned up the radio very loud, turned on the wipers, and turn on the a/c to an extreme setting and then we both got back in the back seat where we were told to stay.  Of course when her mother came back and turned the key, all hell broke loose.  Although her mother was not amused, she just murmured something and went on about the way.  My friend and I were busting up laughing in the back seat, but her mother's reaction was not the one we wanted.

I will always remember this instance as an example of how calm she used to be and how much of a lady she was.  Even though I didn't keep in touch with her much after she and her husband retired to Florida I still considered her a friend as much as her daughter.  She will be missed.

Watching Your Parents Age

I see my folks are getting on and I watch their bodies change
I know they see the same in me and it makes us both feel strange

No matter how you tell yourself, it's what we all go through

Those lines are pretty hard to take when they're starin' back at you

Scared to run out of time – Nick of Time

It’s hard to watch your parents go through sickness toward death. My father is slowly dying because he is in heart failure and there is nothing they can do. He is so weak that the operation to fix his defibrillator would kill him. So they have him on hospice care and have turned off the defibrillator part and only the pacemaker remains. He has lost so much weight he is just skin and bones probably because the medication reduces his appetite over the last few years.

I went to see him on Sunday. He lives in Delaware so it’s a long way to go and I don’t get down there often. I speak to him on the phone pretty much weekly, and now a little bit more frequently, but it’s hard for him to string more than a few words together at a time. He was going in and out of sleep because it is hard for him to stay alert because of the weakness. But he was cognizant of my being there. He is on oxygen, which is helping some, but the organs are slowly shutting down and he doesn’t have much more time. My step-mother of course hopes for the best and every tiny change for the better makes her hope more. She is almost 15 years his junior. I don’t quite know why she would hope like that. It is so obvious that he is on death’s door and at this point they are just keeping him comfortable.

He made a statement to me on Sunday that the hardest part was the waiting. I agree. I can only imagine what he is going through knowing that he is dying soon and wondering why he is still alive. There is no quality of life there. I don’t hold out any hope that he will survive this, and that may be callus of me to say, but the man is 86 years old and has had heart problems since his 60s. Unless there was some fountain of youth that was discovered in the next few weeks he is going to go. Miracles like that just don’t happen to regular folk. I only pray that he doesn’t suffer and that he goes quietly and painlessly when the time come whenever that will be. In the meantime I have to contact him as much as possible and let him know I care despite our differences. He’s my father, after all.

The Soul

I have an acquaintance at work, and we have known each other for the longest time. It’s been so long I can’t even remember how we met. A few years ago we found that we have a mutual friend who was more an acquaintance to me that she was to her. We always found common ground when it came to our mutual friend and when we would run into each other in the ladies room or in the break room usually we were able to talk about something other than the weather. Our mutual friend died about 8 months ago and yesterday when I ran into my co-worker I was just about to ask how so and so was before I suddenly remembered so and so wasn’t around any longer. I kind of didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything but just smiled, nodded, and walked away.

Death has a way of coming down and plucking someone from our lives like someone flicking a bug off their shirt. One minute that person is there, and the next minute they’re gone. I guess I am lucky so far as I have not had that many people close to me die, so I have not experienced that bone crushing grief that I imagine others feel when they lose a loved one. I had a boyfriend who found out he had liver cancer and was not expected to live long after we broke up. I think about him from time to time, but we were not involved any longer when he got sick, so that’s different. I can’t imagine how I will feel when my husband dies, and my parent’s loss I think would feel different. I can’t fathom how I would feel if my son died. I have a good friend who lost a child a few years back. That experience change her and I feel funny talking about my son as our children were around the same age.

People believe different things about death. I recently read a book about souls and reincarnation called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton. I made a lot of sense to me and really helped me deal with my own death. It doesn’t help lessen the grief associated with the loss of a loved one, but to believe that you will be a part of that spiritual circle for eternity helps somewhat, in my opinion. More so it helped me understand that we are all here for a reason and it is important to live your life knowing that you are here to learn and experience things to help you grow as a soul. It made the point that what you do in this lifetime affects what your next life will be, and understanding can help with your direction and life decisions.

Getting Ones Affairs in Order

I have been spending a lot of my time today getting my “affairs in order”. It’s not that I am going to die soon, but one never knows. I thought about this because of my father, who by the way is much better, and discussions with my mother. So I looked up some websites and found two that were helpful, one from the state and one from a church. Both have forms that you can fill out that have all manner of things to have on hand so your family knows what you want done and the location of important documents. I started a binder with sections and started printing out things and putting them in the book. I made up one for my husband too.

I think that most people are scared to think of these things. I guess it’s hard to face your own demise. But it’s eventually going to come and I know from experience if you leave things in an orderly fashion it’s so much easier for everyone. Take my stepfather for example. He left detailed instructions down to the tiniest piece and my mother and his sisters didn’t have to do any second guessing. I mean it was so detailed that he mapped out the role for each person to play at the memorial service as well as the disposal of all his personal belongings. This was far and above his will even.

Of course my mother scoffs at the idea that I get this information from the web. She wants me to go to a lawyer. I am sure that if my estate were complicated with a lot of real estate holdings or money, that would be prudent, but my life is fairly simple.

The Finality of Life

My getting older means my parents get older. That’s obvious. My father suffered a small stroke last night and I was wakeful most of the night thinking about it. His health is very poor to begin with and he has been in and out of the hospital since his bypass surgery 10 years ago. Every time he goes in he somehow pulls through, so you would think that I would be somewhat immune to the worry that is accompanies him going into the hospital. However, each time it happens I fear his death. It’s weird as I am not really that close to him.

My father was not an important figure in my life. My parents got a divorce when I was a teenager. It wasn’t a very nasty one and my brother and I did spend a lot of time with our father when we were younger. When I was in college, he got remarried to a woman who is considerably younger than he and only about 15 years older than I. I never got very close to her either. I believe it was primarily because our respective views on life are diametrically opposed, and I never found conversation with them easy. But it was probably more because of the way they treated me after my divorce. I never really forgave them for basically ignoring me when I reached out for support while trying to get out of an abusive marriage.

However, he is my father and his death represents more than the loss of a person. It is means much more to me because he is first of my biological parents to die. My mother’s husband died last year and that was very sad and I miss him a lot, but somehow it’s not the same. I suppose it represents the fact that I am mortal and that I too will die someday too. I don’t think I am really scared of death; I accept it and acknowledge my mortality and am not really freaked out by it. I only hope I don’t suffer.

So we all wait to see what is going to happen this time. Will he pull through again, or will he be incapacitated, or will this be the end?