Undaunted Joy #124

The Gift of a Beautiful Death

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I am quieter than usual as we sit in church, waiting for Mass to begin. Perhaps I am tired or distracted. My teen son notices. He is always attuned to the tiny fractions of movement in the needs and moods of others, especially mine.

He leans over.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Without missing a beat, I reply, straight faced, looking forward, “Well, I’m dying.”

My son nearly blows snot out of his nose and tries to muffle his laugh as we are in a quiet church.

We have a dark humor.

“Yes, Mom.  We are all dying.  Each day is just one closer to death. So don’t waste it.”

This is an ongoing joke in our family. Not because we are morbid (okay, maybe we are) but because we as a family practice Memento Mori, the ancient Stoic meditation, “meditate on your death, so that you will live well.”

No one is getting out of here without dying. It is part of life. Meditating on our death, not being afraid of it, helps us to live a more joyful life.

I’ve seen a bit of death in the last few years. Because we are a family who are not afraid of death, we are often honored by being called to the bedside of someone in their last days.

For those who are unafraid, knowing these are the last days with their loved one, there is such tenderness. We do not know if our friend could hear us in those last days, but we made certain, she was not alone. There was always someone by her bedside.  We told stories about the past and shared beautiful moments from the day. We took turns reading from Scripture and my son, younger then, took it upon himself to read chapters of his favorite book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. There were daily concerts in that room, saxophone and trumpet, violin and piano and of course, our own voices.

Yes, we were teary and sad that we were losing our friend, but we did not want her to feel that heaviness in the room as we still had her with us.  We did not want her to be afraid. Sobbing and anger and gloom would not convey how much we loved her as would laughter and brushing her hair and moisturizing her hands as we gathered around her.

And when it was finally time for her to go, there were many gathered in her room as there had been. She was not alone. She knew she was loved and cared for. Her face relaxed into a picture of peace.

***

I feel great. Life is good. But I will die one day.

So I’ve been telling my family and friends what I’d like read, sung or played as I pass from this world to the next.  And I’ve been asking my friends for a list of the same.  What a gift to give each other---a beautiful death.

For me,

Play Mahler’s 2^nd or 9^th symphonies for me and just the first 20 seconds of Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues, over and over and over again.

Read Tennyson, probably Lady Of Shallot or Ring out Wild Bells.  My youngest says, he understands.  That even if I cannot understand, the cadence will soothe me.

Or read any of Ted Kooser’s poems.  I love how he calls attention to a small moment in life you would have missed, cutting a sandwich, the first snow of the season or drawing your name in sparklers.

Play your instruments, sing hymns and when the end comes read aloud for everyone to hear,

Psalm 84,

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God…

Better is one day in your courts
    than a thousand elsewhere;