Ten-Finger Exercises

letting go

You would think, wouldn't you, that in my line of work I'd hear a lot of deathbed conversation? Surprisingly, I don't. People are often too ill to talk, or in so much pain that they need a lot of morphine and mostly just sleep. Or they are surrounded by family, have their own pastor, etc. Quite a few are too demented to carry on much of a conversation anyway, or too hard of hearing.

Gisela is a lady I've written about before, although I can't remember what I called her that time. Gisela will do. I want a name that will show her German heritage, so that you'll see her as the intelligent, stubbornly independent woman that she is. When I visited her yesterday in the nursing home where she's been living, she was very gurgly and could only manage single words at a time. She said "it "had just come on her (even though she has lung cancer,) and she asked me to pray that she get over it.

At the same time, hedging her bets to cover herself, she told staff she hadn't expected to live through the night and was praying to die. I suspect she would rather die than appear to be out of control.

I called her hospice nurse, who said they had had a long talk at the beginning of the week. Gisela found it hard to believe she was really dying, finally, and the nurse had laid it out for her. She had also called Gisela's daughter, who lives six hours away.

This morning she looked worse, and she asked me, "Am I dying?" I told her yes, maybe not today, but probably not long. Her chin quivered, and she looked like she was crying, but no tears came out. She said she was not afraid. (The nurse had said she was.)

I sat with her for over an hour, and each of us spoke occasionally. I told her the things I appreciated about her, things I thought she'd want to hear: her keen mind, her feisty spirit, her sense of justice and fair play, her ability to take things as they come without complaining. I asked her if she was more like her mother or her father. She said she hadn't thought much about that before, but maybe her mother. But her mother had always put God first in her life, and she had not done so.

So we talked about what she had put first: her husband, her two children, her students, and whether that was so very different than putting God first. (She didn't mention putting herself first, and neither did I; although when I knew her years ago, when her husband was seriously ill in the hospital, it was always her illnesses I heard about.)

We talked about being human, and being forgiven, and our need to forgive others (like her pastor who never came to visit.) (He did finally come today, after much prompting from me and an assurance that she hadn't much time left. Grrrr.)

When I went back to see her on my way home, I almost changed my mind and didn't go in. But I'd told her I would, and so I did. She said she had slept all day. She said she could hardly believe this was really happening. I told her my theory, that infinity is difficult to really comprehend, but we think we understand the finiteness of things until it becomes personal. She thought about it and said she thought I was right.

Her daughter, if she left this morning when she got the call from the hospice nurse, would have been here by dinner time. Instead, a facility nurse came in at 4 pm to say the daughter would be leaving this afternoon and might not get in until very late if the roads were bad.

The hospice nurse told me that the daughter had said, when she heard the news, that her mother had "been dying for years" and was it "real this time?"

While that seemed hard, I was not without sympathy, because Gisela told me today she'd been fighting cancer for nine years and had had "twenty-three surgeries." She counted each little skin blemish, basal cell carcinoma, a separate surgery. I told her she'd been very brave, because I couldn't think of any other reason she'd say it that way other than to demonstrate some sort of toughness.

I identify with her quite a bit, even though I don't spell out my infirmities to all listeners I hope. I think the place she's coming from is a lonely one, a place of superiority and need for recognition. I wouldn't describe myself that way exactly, but I can't deny it either. Maybe I should have told her how wise she is. That's probably what I would most like to hear.

Gisela asked if I thought her pastor and her daughter "know the severity of my illness." I assured her they had been told. Maybe it will come as a surprise to them. Maybe she'll actually pull out of this, but I doubt it. She was worse tonight. What is it that her spirit needs to hear and know to let go in peace?