A Time to Die
My husband, son, and I had just enjoyed an afternoon at a beautiful Cape Cod beach, letting the waves wash away our sadness after the recent death of my father-in-law. My mother-in-law had died suddenly a year before, and we were still trying to orient ourselves to their absence.
When I put in a call to my widowed 89-year-old father back home in Michigan to share with him the beauty of our day, his phone rang and rang. So I contacted my sister. "Dad's in the hospital," she said. And so began another good-bye.
Diagnosed with a fast-acting terminal cancer, my father told me, "I'm tired of this country," early in his decline. Further along, he asked, "Why is it taking so long?" His lifelong faith in Jesus as Savior had blossomed into a full-blown longing to join Jesus in heaven. He was ready to go.
I struggled with mixed emotions. While our family accepted Dad's decision to forego treatment, we had to ready ourselves for the ordeal of death.
Feeling dazed, I sought peace through prayer. "Lord, I don't want to let my father go," I lamented. "But I know he's ready, so I release him to you. Show me how to help him through this, even though it pains me."
I pondered the strange mix of pain and hope dying in Christ brings. It reminded me of childbirth. Both involve an ordeal of unknown duration—yet in both, the ordeal is limited because of the joy of new life at the end. There was my key to helping my dad. I could look at dying in a new way—as labor and delivery into eternal life!
I'd read about women called "doulas" who specialize in helping birthing mothers through labor. Their supportive presence makes the pain of childbirth more bearable. They gave me my model: I'd become a doula for my dad. I'd see to his comfort and encourage him through his dying labor. Then, through my tears of grief, I'd celebrate his delivery into eternal life.
A doula knows it's not her body at the center of the action. A doula for the dying quickly learns to accept the same limits. Much as we might want to assume our loved one's pain, we remain on the sidelines. But we can accomplish some tasks specifically related to dying.
1. GIVE ENCOURAGEMENT.
We focus so much on his physical comfort; how often do we bolster a dying person's morale as he wearily presses toward the finish line?
According to the American College of Physicians Complete Home Medical Guide (available at www.acponline.org), "One of the most important things you can do to help the person you're caring for is to have a positive attitude. … [They] need encouragement, and they need help noticing the good things that are happening around them. At the same time, it's important to be realistic about the seriousness of their problems. These patients must not feel that their problems are being ignored or belittled."
Originally published in: Today's Christian Woman, 2006, March/April, Vol. 28, Issue 2, Page 34
Related Topics:
Caregiving, Comfort, Death, Decisions, End-of-Life, Dying, Grief, Terminal Illness
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treva(Registered User)
Excellent article. Just last week a close friend died for whom I was POA and health care proxy. I had the good fortune to read words of God's love and mercy to Helen just a few hrs before she died. Helen had been a spiritual mother to me, so to care for her in her last years and especially at her death has been a gift to me. See the DVD, Confronting Death w/ Walter Wangerin.
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