What Dying Teaches Us About Living

 

Few of us want to talk about death. Few experience it more than once, and in the end, it happens to us all. It can’t be avoided.

Death is the ultimate journey of surrender.

Yet just like life, many of us fight it.

One of the things I’ve seen in caring for my father these past 7 months is – he made decisions of what he does and doesn’t want. We’ve had lots of conversations as he’s shared how he wants to move through his final days and the transition to get there.

Decisions that Dr. Gawande talks about in his book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.

It’s one of the most powerful and influential books I’ve consumed in the past few years.

I listened to this book as my father’s wife began her journey through bladder cancer nearly 2 years ago. It’s a book I’d resisted, yet too many people had recommended it. Obviously, I was meant to listen to it for a reason.

In it are five key questions we all need to be able to answer.

How far are we willing to go with our medical care in order to “save” us?

Will what we say yes to, to extend our time on this planet, be in a good way?

My father saw his wife’s torment as she traversed bladder cancer. He saw doctors perform medical treatments that didn’t improve her life. 12 rounds of chemo and then a 7-hour operation. 8 months of pain and suffering that might have been different.

He saw family want to keep her alive for their own sake, even when she said she was done. He saw people make decisions for her because she hadn’t made them for herself.

Our fear of death will have us go through super-human feats in order to stay alive. But at what cost?

We need to be willing to create our own boundaries about what we do and don’t want at the end of life. When we’re not willing to do this for ourselves, we thrust our loved ones into making life and death decisions for us. We push our responsibility onto them. We can’t expect them to “get it right” when we haven’t expressed what “right” is.

Families that don’t have boundaries will struggle with this.

A lack of boundaries typically indicates an avoidance of challenging conversations. We can’t force someone to have the conversation, but when it doesn’t happen, life and death decisions are made in crisis mode. And very few good decisions are made when we’re in the middle of a crisis.

We are all mortal. The most kind and loving thing we can do for ourselves is to make these choices and to let them be known.

So we get to die on our own terms.

Not those made under the influence of medicine or family, which don’t always have our best interest at heart.

As a loved one, don’t wait until someone is on their way out to have conversations or to spend time with them. Yes, life gets busy. But someone in the process of transitioning doesn’t have a lot of energy for you.

It’s not personal.

But to impose your wants doesn’t necessarily equate to their needs. It may also be an imposition on their caregiver who may be walking side by side as they care for their loved one, who grabs quiet moments for their own self-care.

How we create, set and express our boundaries while we’re living will set the stage for them while we’re dying.

Just because we didn’t grow up with them doesn’t mean we can’t create them now. Just because family members still may not want to create them doesn’t mean we can’t for ourselves. They may not like them, and that’s their issue.

Something else to ponder – if family doesn’t respect your boundaries while you’re living, how will they respect them when you’re dying?An advanced medical directive with someone who will respect and carry out your wishes is important.

Because life is ultimately about the boundaries we create and express, that support us in what we truly need and want.

As my father nears the end of this life, he is home, with medication to keep him comfortable, in his hospital bed, wrapped up in his fuzzy blanket. It’s an honor to support him as he transitions and surrenders, on what is ultimately Spirit’s timeline.