TheBanyanTree: Conversation with a Dying Person

[Margaret R. Kramer]

7/15/97
I had a good time with the kids over the weekend.  I was doing all funny
stuff to make them laugh.  We were at the table playing some stupid game,
and I put on an old BRA!  They really had a laugh on that one . . . went
fishing to show them how good I was and got SKUNKED!  That was when I had a
chance to call you.  I missed you.  Real bad.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I always wanted to be in love with a man who wore a bra.  He was a keeper,
that's for sure.

While I was doing a survey on healthcare earlier this week, it came up just
by accident that my interviewee is dying.  He has stage 4 colon cancer.  He
said that the doctor told him he had about eight months to live.

I told him that I was sorry.  And that I was a widow of a year and a half,
and I watched my husband die.

And I had a million questions for him.  And probably in his way, he had a
million for me.

He wasn't married.  And I didn't ask him if he had children.  I knew from
the questions on the survey that he lived alone and he was 59 years old.

Too young to die.

I wanted to know if it was easier for him, knowing that his time was close
by, to get his affairs in order, to say good-bye, to appreciate the life he
had.

I wanted to know for Ray's sake, because we didn't discuss any of this.  But
I did have a chance to say good-bye in a way.  And I did thank him many
times for being in my life.  But a separation by death?  That wasn't
happening for us, or so we thought.

He artfully dodged my inquiry.

My interviewee wanted to know if the grieving process was easier if the
death was fast and unexpected versus if it was an expected death.   

I told him from my experience it didn't matter.  Death is death.  Expected
or unexpected.  Grief and despair affects the living, the ones left behind.

He told me his home hospice care was excellent.  And he really admired the
volunteers who came to help him.

We talked for 41 minutes.  A lot that time was survey time, but we
connected.  He needed to talk to life and I needed to talk to death.  If
only we had longer.

If only we had longer.  Just that extra second.

An end of an era for me came when Ted Kennedy died this week.  I grew up
with the Kennedys.  I watched while Caroline, just a year younger than me,
mourned her father.  I cried when Bobby died.  I grieved like a sister when
John was killed in that airplane crash 10 years ago.

The Kennedys were my surrogate family and now the grandfather is dead.
Senator Kennedy wasn't an angel.  I definitely will never understand what he
did at Chappaquiddick.  
The Kennedys are a public family, but I'm sure Senator Kennedy's wife will
grieve just like we all do when the funeral is over and the crowds thin out,
and you're alone.  It's great to have children and family, but they don't
make up for the loss of that most important person.

She looked good on TV.  She was holding up.  She was strong.  Everyone says
that about widows.  What are we supposed to do?  Collapse?  Scream?  Yell?

No, we're strong, because our husbands deserve the best from us.  And we're
strong for them.

When the door shuts, and evening is approaching, that's when our strength
disappears into a sadness that's almost incomprehensible.  That's when we
walk through the house, touching his things, clutching an object that was
his close to our hearts, and we wail, like animals do.  There is no strength
in that.

My husband has been dead for a year and a half.  I'm stronger than I was
after he died.  I can think somewhat clearly again.  I can accomplish goals
that I couldn't after he died.

I miss him more than ever.  Survivors from the 35W Bridge collapse from 2007
say that the second year is the worst, because you can really feel what you
don't have anymore.  You're too numb the first year to miss anything.  And I
agree with that.

I love him more than I ever did.  I hope he can feel it.

I hope he can feel my strength.  He deserves my best.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to
the body, nourishment and refreshment. 
-William Penn