I was assigned to read chapters from this book called "How We Die" while in grad school. I've found it very apropo to what we're dealing with now. This excerpt is from the chapter called "Lesson Learned." Dr. Nuland (he's a surgeon) talks about his experience with his Aunt Rose, who he saw very much like our grandma.
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Nuland shares this story because his view is that "The greatest dignity to be found in death is the dignity of the life that preceded it. This is a form of hope we can all achieve, and it is the most abiding of all. hope resides in the meaning of what our lives have been." ...
He adds, "The dying themselves bear a responsibility not to be entrapped by a misguided attempt to spare those whose lives are intertwined with theirs. I have seen this form of aloneness, and even unwisely conspired in it, before I learned better." ...
"During my second year of surgical residency, when Rose was in her early seventies... biopsy revealed an aggressive lymphoma... Rose began to weaken... Harvey and I, with the agreement of our cousin Arline, colluded to convince the hematologist that she must not be told her diagnosis."
"Without perhaps even realizing it, we had committed one of the worst of the errors that can be made during terminal illness -- all of us, Rose included, had decided incorrectly and in opposition to every principle of our lives together that it was more important to protect one another from the open admission of a painful truth than it was to achieve a final sharing that might have snatched an enduring comfort and even some dignity from the anguishing fact of death. We denied ourselves what should have been ours."
"Although there was no doubt that Rose knew she was dying of cancer, we never spoke of it to her, nor did she bring it up. She worried about us and we worried about her, each side certain it would be too much for the other to bear. We knew the outlook and so did she; we convinced ourselves she didn't know, though we sensed that she did, as she must have convinced herself we didn't know, though she must have known we did. So it was like the old scenario that so often throws a shadow over the last days of people with cancer: we knew -- she knew -- we knew she knew -- she knew we knew -- and none of us would talk about it when we were all together. We kept up the charade to the end. Aunt Rose was deprived and so were we of the coming together that should have been, when we might finally tell her what her life had given us. In this sense, my Aunt Rose died alone."
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I don't know if I necessarily agree with his view about what "hope" is, but I do very much agree with his assessment of "aloneness." If we can't have frank conversations with Ahma about how she will be leaving us in physical death, but that we are still with her in life, after her life, and in eternity, then she is in many ways still alone, even if we are physically near. I feel that it is very important to let her know we are always with her, even beyond just the physical. That's why being a believer is so important to her.
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