Pensieri di un lunatico minore

The strength to not fight any more

Reading Terry Pratchett’s moving thoughts on the right to live, and die, in our own way. It closes with this line:

Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of preservation, too, and these can be lost in a fetish for life at any cost.

I believe that if the burden gets too great, those who wish to should be allowed to be shown the door.

In my case, in the fullness of time, I hope it will be the one to the garden under an English sky. Or, if wet, the library.

It is not easy to think of the end of someone’s life. I certainly know that with everything that I have been through this year, that I would rather not think of it; and yet, there is power in thought. There is power in decision, and strength in not fighting.

My sister and I were fortunate to be present when our mother passed earlier this year. Because she had long suffered from COPD, the issue of what happened tomorrow often included a matter-of-fact discussion of what happened at the end. We both knew, deeply and with complete certainty, what mom wanted when the time came. There was no doubt there.

Yet the decision to let go was not easy, or simple. It was nothing less than a battle of selfish instinct versus selfless desires: my desire to have my mother in my life; her desire not to suffer any longer and not to become a burden on her children. We were fortunate to be surrounded by people who understood what we were going through. They knew how difficult the decision was, but they also knew what our mom wanted, as she was an adopted mother to them as well. Their certainty reinforced ours and gave us strength to make a decision that we did not want to make.

When mom finally took her oxygen off for the third time, and then decided to keep it off, we knew the time had come. So many years of suffering—of fighting. Nearly a decade with a disease the doctors insisted would take her within a year or two. More strength than either of us could imagine wielding, especially in the face of insurmountable opposition. The time had come to stop fighting.

Fortunately, we were able to reunite my mom with people who, for reasons small and large, had drifted apart. Clara, her friend and margarita buddy, for so many years. Caroline, the woman who had raised me—taught me to like liver and onions—and whose spirituality made some discussions difficult, so that she had hid things from her friend for years. In the end, when the last moments tick away, concerns about the future become meaningless and my mom was able to reveal things she had kept to herself. In those last moments, there was nothing but love and acceptance, unfiltered by society’s antiquated moors.

When the house finally stood still—the oxygen machine off for the first time in many, many years—and my mom lay peaceful for once, I realized that no matter how much it hurt, we had done what children are often called to do. To say goodbye, and to realize that we all live forever in the hearts of others. Our legacy is not money or property; our legacy are the memories we leave embedded in other’s lives. Our mom had battled harder than anyone had any right to expect, and lived to see her daughter finish graduate school and married; her son happily settled. The weights on her heart were lifted in those last days and she was finally at peace.

When the day finally comes for me that I might face the dimming days, I can only hope that I have inherited a measure of my mom’s strength to fight and to finally know when to fight no longer. I can only hope that those around me can find the strength to let it happen and find the peace in knowing that I find in my mom’s own graceful exit.

To my sister Kim and my brother-in-law Chad; to Cary; to my friends Sharlene and Brettany; to Clara and Caroline, and the truly amazing people at Hospice Austin, I can never say thank you enough. And to my mom, who never leaves my thoughts for more than a moment, thank you.