Drifting Away

I have some anxiety about death. Not my own, and not those of my dearest loved ones (that’s straightforward fear, not anxiety), but how to answer when it comes knocking at the door with news about somebody in my life. In the case of everyone significant in my life who has died, it was basically expected by the time it occurred. Grandma Jackie had cancer. Uncle Loren had cancer. Grandma Annette and Gramps both had cancer. Grandpa Eugene had a brain bleed after a fall and was hospitalized for weeks. My husband’s brother-in-law had a degenerative brain disease. My Aunt Wendy’s former husband had liver disease. My high school friend and neighbor had cancer.

It’s usually fucking cancer. My friend is on hospice with it right now. It’s been a couple years since I visited her, sitting at a COVID-safe distance from her in her backyard while she was vulnerable from chemo. We’ve always enjoyed each other’s company. I won’t reminisce about the specifics right now because it’s too sad. She recently broadcast the news to friends on Facebook about her decision to go on hospice, and how she is very much preparing for the end. So I am too. I wrote her a brief letter that tried to convey how I feel about her leaving us. I wanted to make it clear that I’m realistic about the situation. There’s no more “keep up the fight” or “you’ve got this”. That letter was supposed to suffice as a farewell, even if I continued having opportunities to talk with her—and I have, a little bit, texting her bits of cheer with pictures of my garden and family.

What do you do after saying goodbye to someone with a terminal illness when you’re not in their inner circle? I don’t live in the same city as my friend anymore, and she is surrounded by people with whom she is much closer. I didn’t live in the same town as any of my grandparents when they were nearing their ends. I visited my Grandma Jackie a few months before she passed away, and when I left to drive home, I felt the best I could do was put some extra love into our hug and look into her eyes with meaning. I hope that she understood. We texted each other a few times after that, but then, I imagine, she retreated into a cocoon of support with her husband (my last surviving grandparent), medical staff, and the oldest daughter who came to be with her. My mom (her second oldest daughter) sent me regular updates. There was no practical place for me to do anything else.

That in-between phase, the waiting, feels like standing in a spotlight and suddenly not knowing what to do with my hands. A critical voice inside me says, This is a big life event. Someone you care about is dying. How are you going to show up for them? How are you going to meet the moment? When I didn’t really talk to my grandma during the last month of her life, I felt a bit like I’d failed. I had already accepted the fact of her demise after she’d stopped chemo. It was the same with my other relatives who’d died of cancer; I didn’t visit them during the last, most difficult months of their lives. I don’t know if I was scared or just didn’t feel important enough to be needed. When they passed, I cried for a day and then moved on, although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still miss them occasionally. I carry some guilt about not being there for them in a bigger way, and for not mourning them more deeply.

Mourning is a process, though. For a terminally ill person, it doesn’t all happen at or after the time of death. It happens in stages as you learn of the illness, see it progress and retreat and progress again, and then finally learn there’s nothing more to be done. It’s possible to get close to acceptance before the end comes, especially with a grandparent who has had a good, long life. When my Gramps died while I was in college, I didn’t grieve a great deal. My roommates at the time brought me a care package when they found out: cookies, flowers, that sort of thing. I felt like I didn’t deserve it because I wasn’t broken up about the loss. There was that useless emotion, guilt, again.

I know that my ill friend is under great care. My grandparents had family surrounding them as well, and they certainly knew I loved them. There’s nothing I should regret except the loss of more time in their company. While I don’t want to act as if my friend is gone yet, my thoughts are decidedly in the vein of saying farewell. I’m mustering whatever spirituality I have to help send her off with love. In my mind’s eye, she is sitting on the biggest, fluffiest cloud made with care by all the people in her life. The cloud is nearly ready to drift away.

(My friend passed away just before this posted.)