Epistle 4: When the Rattling Stops
March 28, 2016

It was little more than two weeks ago since I poured out the sorrows which have underwritten the dying times of my parents. Shortly after I finished the last rendering, I left their sides for nearly 10 days. There was home, work, and the big events in Santa Fe which had been in the offing for months. My father seemed stable, although frail, but mother was clearly moving towards her death.  

My brother was coming into town to care for my mother, who had asked me to put the date of my return on her calendar.

“Ten days,” some might ask? Was there presumption, denial, avoidance, in such a calculation? My father cannot understand much about time, so it is hard to discern how he tracks my comings and goings. My mother, however, was adamant to the end: “You need to carry on with ‘your life’ and not focus on me.”

The time at home with Wendy and work was a blur. All the plans which seemed so doable just a few months ago faded into the recesses, maybe never to manifest themselves. They certainly would undergo revisions based on what was about to transpire.

The orchestrated weekend in Santa Fe brimmed full of labor and learning, There were things learned or heard for the first time which served me in the days to follow.

Early in the week, the reports from my brother and sister were that there were significant changes in my mother’s condition. She was not holding down food and the tumor was like a tire around her waist. On Wednesday, I took some pictures of Mona, her great-granddaughter, to show her, and pondered what I would say about how my time away had gone.

When I arrived on Thursday at 10:00 a.m., Mom’s condition had changed. She had become unresponsive - her eyes fixed open, she was not moving, occasionally moaning, and her breath was book-ended by 10 – 15-second gaps. I tried to mirror her by moaning and breathing at the same pace she was. This was very difficult and resulted in pain in my chest. 

Early on, I looked in her eyes, got close to her ear, and announced that I was there. A single tear rolled from the corner of her eye, ever so slowly…and in a seemingly last act of volition, she attempted to wipe it away. I took her hand before she reached the tear and asked her to let it roll. It made its way down her cheek ever so slowly.

There was a twinge of "I missed my chance to have a last word.” However, her last words to me - shall we say, question - were “How did the event in Santa Fe go?” uttered on the phone earlier in the week. Oh, so characteristic, her wondering what I had done, my work on a project she believed in. That would have to stand, I realized, for there was still work to be done.

A call had been put in to hospice prior to my arrival, and a doctor arrived about 1:00 p.m. She came to see if fluid could be drained from the tumor. She surmised that this was not possible and brought out the liquid morphine. My siblings had given her morphine only a few times prior, as needed. The doctor thought the better of that and suggested every four hours and gave her a dose at 2:00 p.m.

That was the last dose of morphine she received. The rest of the day and into the evening, one, two, or all of us sat with her, talking to her or holding her hand as she moaned. When night came, I pulled up an easy chair and sat next to her. The soothing which had worked during the day did so at night as well. However, about 2:00 a.m. the “rattling” started. Also, some time during the night, her breath became very rhythmic, quite different from the apnea which had been present earlier in the day.

I contacted my personal hospice nurse consultant who told me that the sounds were the fluids not being swallowed, and therefore the gurgling at the bottom of the throat.  Later, the official nurse came by and offered intervention to have the gurgling cease. She confessed that this procedure was so that the family would not hear the dying, and did nothing to deal with any pain or suffering of the person who was rendering that sound. We all said "We want to hear it.”

Friday morning was more of the same….gently stroking her head, arms, and belly when she moaned. Having miscalculated my chance to have an in-person last word, my questions now were, “How can we not miss her dying? Be in the room all the time? What about letting my siblings have their alone time with her?” My mind raced - I was sure to spend another night in the chair. So in and out we went, always someone there, all her children committed to using touch and comforting words to help her moaning and shuddering.

Being present at the moment of her death seemed to be the destination this journey might offer. I had bargained for that big flood of energy, that awe in the room which came forth when my children were born. Boy, was I in for a surprise…

In the morning, it began. Lying flat on her back, eyes fixed, mouth open, she raised up both her arms to the sky, her hands shaking slightly. The energy in the room, while different from that of birth, was similarly evocative. 

A quick Google search was conducted, and it was surmised that she was reaching into another world to hug or greet those who were seeking to gather her in. We then dug deep into her ancestor archives. We read letters, talked about pictures, and generally encouraged her to move on. She would lift her arms six or eight times during the afternoon. Each time, the room filled with energy, tears, and a sense of timelessness…

People began arriving by midday. First the hospice nurse, with her antidote to the rattling. She cried for my mother, who had become someone who had deeply touched her.  

Then the minster came. He spoke gentle and thoughtful words about Betty as someone whom he met 16 years previously. Their first interaction had been a professional one, bantering about the grammatical correctness of the abbreviation of the word microphone: mic or mike. Oh, that was Mom!

Then the hospice social worker came. This was another person whom Betty had intertwined in her life. The social worker added her two cents about the raised arms and reported that children have seen the people who are being touched. She also said that animals are especially sensitive in these moments.

These people all left, and it was getting later in the afternoon. The food at the house was minimal and not consistent with my current sensibilities. I pondered going to the store, thought the better of it, and instead asked the caregiver to go. Most people had weighed in that the rattling could go on for "some time. " 

So even here, with death so present, moments were being mortgaged with the hope, expectation, and sense of entitlement of more time…

I went into the room knowing the food would be coming, brought my books and water, and sat at her bedside holding her hand, with pictures of our oldest people out. In rushed a dog, young, reportedly in training to be a hospital “service” dog. She ran around the room two or three times, sniffing each corner. I reminded Mom about the dog she had growing up. The dog put her paws up on the bed, sniffed her, and then left.

The dog’s owner, Jennifer, a younger, yet close, friend of Mom came into the room. Not a stranger to being at a death bed nor to the slings and arrows of life, she sat with me. We were on either side of her, each of us holding her hand. As we talked, the rattling/gurgling slowed its rhythmic tempo, her breathing quickened, and then stopped. Her hand gently curled on mine. Jennifer kneeled, performed the stations of the cross, and left to tell others. There I sat, awash in tears for more than 90 minutes, until my mother let go of my hand.

Calls were made, people were told, all those who had been close were informed. Betty had decided that she wanted to donate her body to science. We cleaned her up, put her in a dress which she had made after she recovered from illness last summer, and put on her favorite head band. The van came at 9:00 p.m. and her body was gone.

There were two learnings from the previous weekend in Santa Fe which were so relevant as this process unfolded. First is the feast which death can provide to us all. While in a reverie during the teaching, the image of the chef rolling up vegetables for us to eat during lunch came to my mind. Then, quickly, the image of my mother lying peacefully in bed as I had left her rushed in. My tears flowed. Here it was - her death could be food for all of us to eat. As if to punctuate this notion, it should not be lost on anyone that she died on Good Friday…nor that she told us of her death so many times before…nor that in her death, many people might now feed on so many levels.

The second learning relates to how that feast might be shared with the community. Death, like the birth of a child, can be anticipated, planned for, fretted over, and the like.  However, when it comes, it will always bring so much more than expected. Death will require the same work, attention, collaboration, compassion, and humility as of the new parents who are now responsible for the care of something so strange.

So, this is the challenge for my brother, sister and me. We are all people fed by the breast milk of the inalienable right of doing it our way, and have such different beliefs, attitudes toward life, and what it means. The baby of our mother’s death needs so much of our continued love and attention. We need to find a way to craft a feast which can feed many - not just a few.

This is being finished as I sit at my father's house. He is sleeping after being told the news of his ex-wife’s death yesterday. Here again, the task of walking him toward his death is so present, now with some glimmer of how it all could be. I fill up with a willingness and resolve to put my shoulder to the work and labor which will be necessary.

People wonder, “How do you do it?” I say, “I have all of you...growing in number each day, and willing to read, sorrow, and eat of the food of the deaths to which I am witness.”

All of us are orphans trying to find our way home.

Brian