Lessons from the Dying: A Three-Raspberry Day

Lessons from the Dying:  A Three-Raspberry Day 

I have always felt a deep honor and privilege when working with terminal patients and their families.  To be brought into their inner circle during such an intimate time is quite unique and awe inspiring.  It is a time when emotional walls are down, vulnerability is present and outside distractions are gone.  The human spirit is an amazing thing to watch, especially during times of trial.

These experiences have had tremendous impact on me.  They have helped to shape my belief system and consequently effect how I live my life.  I would like to share with you three significant lessons I have learned from the dying.

I have asked several hospice volunteers from medical staff to social workers - even clergy, “Why do you work with the dying?”  And I have been told on more than one occasion, “Because they cut through the bullshit”.  In other words, they are real.  It’s as if an unspoken universal permission slip has been granted to them that allows them to, “Say it like it is”.  This idea had always seemed liberating to me.  In fact, for many years I was envious that they were allowed to be so brutally honest. 

Imagine if we had one week left to live.  What would we really say?  What would we finally do, and with whom would we actually want to spend our time?  And then it dawned on me.  There is no universal permission slip.  The liberty of authenticity does not come from external sources, but rather from within.  We alone allow or disallow ourselves to be who we truly are despite societal expectations.  We do not need a terminal diagnosis from our primary care physician to allow us to be real.

The second lesson I have learned from the dying has become my life motto.  And that is, “Live without regret”.  Let’s go back to our last week on earth.  Better yet, let’s take it to the last day.  Imagine we are on our deathbed.  Perhaps family and friends are around us.  We are keenly aware that it is time to go.  Quickly, think back over your life and in your mind answer the following question.  “What I regret most about my life is___________”.  Take the first thing that comes to your mind.  Remember it.  In fact, I would suggest that you write it down.  The beauty of this exercise is, we are not on our deathbed.  Perhaps we have the time and the means to do what needs to be done to live without regret.

The last lesson I would like to share is to, “Live fully”.  Rick Fields said, “I’ll live as well, as deeply, as madly as I can, until I die”.  Rick had stage four-metastatic lung cancer.  I did not know him but I read about him and by all accounts he did just that. 

I think living fully means to take in all that life has to offer.  To treasure every moment.  There is a difference however, between a full life and a life of loud grandiose facade.  A surface, when scratched that may revel less substance than it pretends to have.  While in reverse, there are those deceptively unimportant people and events that may be overlooked because they seem too quiet or small.  If we seek fullness and depth, we must then be willing to slow down to see what is beyond the first glance.  Beyond the first judgment.  Fullness and meaning, I think, tend to come in the humbler, quieter times.

A hospice volunteer related a story to me about one of her patients.  As is customary for a volunteer, she would make routine visits to the home to care for the patient.  This would give his wife, who was his full-time caregiver some much needed time for herself.  My friend had become close to the patient and his family.  She spoke to me of one of her visits close to the end of his life.  He had not eaten much in several days which is a normal process of the body shutting down in the last stages of death.  She had just picked some fresh raspberries from her garden that morning.  It was unlikely that he would be able to eat any of them, but she knew the family would enjoy them. 

As she sat with the patient he was a bit more alert than usual and he noticed the raspberries sitting nearby.  They were rich in color and smell.  He said he thought he might like to try and eat one.  He could only take in a few seeds, which she put into his mouth with a spoon.  He related to her in labored speech and measured words how extraordinary they tasted.  The flavor burst in his mouth.  He had not tasted raspberries in a long time and thought he would never taste them again. 

Finally, when that little bite of berry was gone he indicated that he wanted one more taste.  So again, she helped feed him a few more little sections and watched him savor the precious moment.  She spent the rest of the visit feeding him raspberry seeds.  By the end, his energy was spent.  He had eaten three whole raspberries.  Before she left, he said with much effort, “It has been a three-raspberry day”. 

Sometimes when I find myself rushing through the day I will say, “Stop Susan, just stop!”  What can I do to make this a Three-Raspberry Day?’  I take a deep breath, open my senses and just be.  I thank my teachers for lessons taught:  Be real, live without regret, and live fully.

Let's stoke this fire!

Let's stoke this fire!  What was it that I posted last semester, about three blogs?  And she calls herself a blogger.

I watched myself wither as a writer last semester.  By some fluke, none of my classes for fall semester 2016 required writing.  Honestly, ask me how many papers I wrote:  Zippo, nadita, not a single one.  And while my memorize/regurgitate skills got honed, it was as if my writing brain slowly withered away.  The question loomed, would it ever return?  The answer to that is still unknown.  This will be a semester of writing, to be sure.  I have made a few stabs at it so far, but writing now feels rather unfamiliar.  Flexing old muscles that haven't been used in a long time, awkward and somewhat painful.

One thing that went away in my life was the joy of waking up in the wee hours of the morning with a nearly fully formed idea for a blog, jumping out of bed in a groggy, pre-awake stage, and groping for the laptop.  Oh those were heady days.  Now, it's like I can't even remember how to pull up a new word doc.  If you don't use it, you lose it.

Enough whine!  If you want strong muscles, you flex them.  So here's a trifle that I submitted for a class last night.  It was done in about two minutes and was the tail end of all the homework I had to do yesterday, so reportedly not my best work.  But for the sake of beginning again, here is my latest submission for English 201 Non Fiction Writing.

Anecdotal

I was most interested to read, “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, by David H. Freedman.  I have spent many years fine tuning my diet and lifestyle to seek a healthier way of living.  Junk food went out the window long ago.  The article mentioned the high cost of good food which is very true.  But I decided long ago that I would spend my money on healthy food.  This is a priority for me.  Of course, this decision was challenged greatly when I became a student two years ago and my income was reduced to about a quarter of what I was making before.  Now, I can’t always buy organic or local.  But I do so when I can and with the full knowledge that I will do so again after graduation.  Why pay more for good food and alternative health care?  Because I’m worth it.  Perhaps I’ve come to this conclusion as I have gotten older and my body has started to fall apart.  For example, I can no longer pull all-nighters, no matter how much I need to study.  And I can no longer eat junk food of any kind.  It simply makes me feel ill. 

The article makes fun of stores such as Whole Foods.  They are expensive and have a lot of silly things that are supposedly healthy.  But the truth is there are some things that I eat that I can only find at stores like these.  I’m happy that Fred Meyers now has larger and better stocked health food sections which is where I shop almost exclusively.  The article also makes several convincing points that processed foods are not bad for us.  I don’t care.  I know how I feel when I eat them.  It may be an anecdotal story, but it’s my anecdotal story.