Sunday musings 3/29/2020…Prepare Each Day As If It’s the Last Time You’ll See Loved Ones
Sunday musings…
1) Feckless. Who would have ever thought that our country would look to a 73 yo mensch from Yellowstone, OH to lead us in the Age of the Pandemic. Or that the mayor of NYC, arguably the most important city in the Western Hemisphere, will forever be married to the single most derogatory term I have ever seen attached to a politician.
2) Answers. “I don’t have any answers at all.” Sabrina Ionescu, University of Oregon
Ms. Ionescu suffered a much more personal loss when the helicopter went down. Kobe Bryant had become an in-person mentor, schooling her not just on her game but on life as a leader. And now the crowning moment for the nation’s best college basketball player (not, it should be noted, best women’s basketball player) has been snatched from her grasp by the pandemic.
Like so many of us in so many other walks of life, a leader is left with no one to lead and nowhere to lead them if she could.
It’s hard to put into words, but at this moment in time, unbeknownst to this very special young woman, I have more in common with her than she could possibly imagine.
3) Endings. It is nothing short of heartbreaking to read the stories about people saying goodbye to a spouse, children, parents without knowing if it’s just a regular “see you later” or a real at-the-end goodbye. Just one example: so many stories about the agony of family members who have placed loved ones into hospice care only to learn that they cannot be there at the very end due to the all too real need to put physical distance between our bodies, no matter how much we need to bring our souls together.
Thinking for just a tiny moment about that, about the very specific question of hospice care and the intense desire to be there to shepherd a loved one to the beyond, the sage advice of my dear friend Bill, the surgeon, is there once again to guide us. It’s so much more important to be there just before the end. Before our loved one has begun their final journey. Before they are unable to hear us. Feel our hand in theirs, our tender caress. Bill has long said that the rush to be at the deathbed side has always confused him. What should we have left to say, he wonders. Peace is there to be made, love to be professed each and every day. For those entrusted with our loved ones under hospice care let Bill’s gentle guidance show you the way.
Allow, nay encourage, peace to be made and love to be professed, heartfelt goodbyes to be made upon entering your gentle care.
For the rest of us, those of us who need not address death at the doorstop just yet, allow me to return to the lovely advice offered by Ira Bock M.D., a doctor from Dartmouth who spoke at a conference held in memory of my late friend Ken a year after his passing. The talk was surprisingly moving, not only because it brought back memories of Ken but also because I would go on to lose my Dad and both of my in-laws in the not too distant future. I thought of my folks throughout the talk. What the speaker discussed as end of life care and end of life preparations also offered a very important take-away that I will try to apply now, today, as if the end of life was nigh.
One should say 4 things often and with ease, not only in the course of completing a life’s work or concluding a life’s relationships, but in the course of living a life:
Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.
Sounds simple, huh? Maybe even a little trite. But each one of those little phrases is a bit of a minefield, each one laden with a hidden meaning and a back story, each one the mid-point in a little journey with a “before” you know, and an “after” you can’t possibly predict. There’s a little risk in that “after”, too, and that’s why those 4 little phrases aren’t really all that simple, and why considering this is not at all trivial. All 4 of those little phrases make you look outward, look at another, and in the saying they force you to put yourself at the mercy of that other. Each one of those phrases is a little opening in our guard, an invitation for someone to accept or reject not only the sentiment but the sender.
I’ve spent several years thinking about those 4 essential things and about how they fit in a life that is not necessarily concluding, even today in the midst of the Great Covid-19 Pandemic. We are, each of us, part of a tiny little ecosystem; thinking about using these phrases encourages us to look outward and see the others in our own worlds whether we are approaching the conclusion of a life, or smack dab in the middle. How will my Mom react if I approach this when I visit? Does she know it’s now the 5th act, that we are tying up all of the loose ends in the story?
How about my friends, my kids, my darling Beth? Actually, without really knowing it I’ve been on this path for some years now, probably guided by Beth and her inherent goodness. Friends come and go; either way I’ll likely feel a sense of completeness in the relationship if I remember these 4 things. Patients and staff do, too. Come and go, that is. I think I’m a pretty good boss and pretty user-friendly for patients as far as specialists go. Bet I’ll be better at both if I’m thinking about these, even just a little bit, even now.
Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.
Don’t wait for the conclusion of your life to think about these. Don’t wait for the end of a life to say these things.
I’ll see you next week…
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