An Update And Reflection On Death

 Last week during our visit back to The Ranch, we had an opportunity to my Aunt Pat.

My aunt, as you may recall from a couple of weeks ago, was diagnosed with cancer.  Originally feared to be a stage 4 Pancreatic cancer, it seems to be two separate cancers at much earlier stages, one in the pancreas and one in the duodenum.  Treatment seemed an option and she was willing. The first round of chemo happened two weeks ago.

When we saw her, she was clearly not at her best but seemed well enough.  The chemo was hard on her:  lots of throwing up and dry heaves.  But she was able to walk out and see us last Saturday and we had a pleasant and lucid conversation.

Last Tuesday - six days from the publishing of this article - she was back in the hospital in critical condition.

The next few days were a fog, broken up by texts from my cousin to the rest of the "cousin" generation.  Intubated and in ICU, she had a heart attack and at some point in that first day the doctor somewhat despaired of her life.  She rallied though, and by Thursday was in sufficiently good enough state to ask to have the breathing tube removed.  On Saturday she was transported back home.

Her reaction was to the chemo.  She will be on hospice now where they will treat her various other conditions - heart, diabetes, etc.  But no more chemo.  Her body cannot take it.

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My reaction to the notification from my cousin surprised me: I was shocked in a way that I had not been with the passing of my own parents.  Since that initial event, I have been trying to figure out why.  My best guess is that most of the deaths in my family to date have been longer, drawn out affairs, not the almost suddenness of "Here Today, Gone (or Almost Gone) tomorrow".

Of my grandparents, there were only two sudden deaths - but even then, they happened when I was well into college and so there was not the nearness of seeing them so soon before their death.  Of the others - the other two of my grandparents, my Aunt J, and TB The Elder and my mother - these were longer drawn out affairs.  The end was known and the decline was visible, so when death finally came, it was not so much of a surprise as a small immediate shock that it had happened then, not before and now not later.

For my Aunt, she literally went from fairly functional to almost dying within three days.

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I try to find lessons, or at least things to ponder, in most of what happens.  For this, I am struggling just a bit.

I know that death can, in theory, happen to anyone at any time.  I know that, but do I really believe it?

Most of that is probably a failing on my part, brought on in part by the fact that we live in the modern world and so "sudden death" is term often reserved for sports, not for real life.  This is quite in opposition to most of human history, where life was much more tenuous due to lower hygiene, famines, wars, and limited medical care.  We assume we will live our allotted three score and ten (or four score by dint of strength) because that is how society works now.  Sudden death is for other people in other places; even the sudden death of our elders carries the unspoken sense of "Well, at least they lived a full life".

There are two risks in this, of course.  The first is a crippling fear of death that limits us from doing anything.  The second is a devil may care attitude where we do not at all think of tomorrow, because who knows if tomorrow will come?  Neither of these are healthy and both lead to, if you will pardon the pun, dead ends. (Using, I suppose, dead pan humour, which would make for the seldom seen double pun given in a dark humor manner. Almost the triple crown of dark Dad humour.)

The lesson? Maybe just to treat every visit with a loved one as the last visit.  Maybe to strive to be a bit kinder to those around us, not knowing if this is their last day - or in reverse, if it is the last time that they might speak with us because of our own end.

There is something to the old concept that we live more fully by dwelling on death more frequently.