I know some of what I am writing here has been covered before, but it feels right to talk about it again now. Sometimes we need to share our stories again and again, let the words spill out of us into speech or written text over and over until our experiences feel fully held and honored.
Death, for most of us, is scary. Death is permanent. No matter what anyone living tells you, we CANNOT know with certainty what comes after death until we get there ourselves (if there is a there to which we go, besides the return of your molecules to the universe). I believe that death is also sacred. All of us will die eventually – whether it’s considered an early death or a “good” death after a long life, its eventual occurrence is one of the few (the only?) certainties in life. While my religious/spiritual beliefs may be in flux due to everything that has happened in my life, I do find comfort in the cycles in the universe, and death is a part of life. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still mad at the universe that Sara is gone, that she died at age 42 when we’d planned to live many more years together… but no matter how awful I find the fact of her death, I feel that her death itself was sacred – it would have been, whether she died when she did at 42 or if she’d have died at 82.
As of this week, over a 3.5 year period I have been a companion/witness to four beloved beings in their death. Two pets and two humans: my old man cat Tyger in Jan 2018, our son George in August 2019, my wife Sara in Nov 2019, and my beagle buddy Elvis (also an old man) just this week. While I wish beyond all wishes that I could make it so that George and Sara were still here with me, I am still grateful that was able to be with them in their final moments. I didn’t want them to die, but if they were going to, I wanted to be there with them. I know not everyone would want to be witness to death, but I also know that so many people would want to but are not able to for so many reasons, and so I will always be grateful that I could be there for these four beings.
With Elvis and Tyger, there was an element of control. Both of these wonderful animal companions were at the ends of their lives and euthanasia was the right choice, to prevent further suffering. Honestly both likely wouldn’t have survived much longer on their own – maybe overnight, maybe not – but I preferred to ease their burdens since they’d made it clear to me that they were ready to let go of this life. We had a vet come to the house – I know we were privileged to be able to do so, but I was glad the other animals were able to see what was happening so that they could understand in their own way. I made sure they were comfortable and the vet walked us through was was happening both times.
There was so much relief each time, after the sedative kicked in prior to the euthanasia drug and their breathing became gentler and less labored. I was there with them the whole time, and made sure to thank them for their companionship all of the years we were together. I laid hands on them after their hearts had stopped and said my final goodbye, before they were swaddled gently and taken away.
George – George was much different from any of the others because we only knew him alive inside of me. I don’t know exactly when he died. All I do know is that he was alive when they did an ultrasound around 8:30 or 9pm the night we went to the hospital, moving and with a beautiful heartbeat, and that he was not alive when he was delivered from my body shortly after 4am the following morning. That night after my water broke, they told us that we could try to hold on until morning to talk to the specialists about options to sustain the pregnancy, but at the end of the day that did not feel like a true option for us, and so we moved forward with labor.
Another difference between George’s death and the others I have witnessed is that it involved significant physical pain for me as well as concern for Sara, who was my steadfast companion. Normally people go through the pains of labor with the understanding that the outcome will be the birth of their (usually) healthy baby. But I was going through labor knowing that it would bring about George’s death. Trying to process that truth while being the one experiencing labor pains was overwhelming. Somehow, though, we just did it. And despite the heavy, heavy sadness and the pain and the fear – we still managed to weave a thread of love between us and around us during the experience. Our love as a couple who wanted to share that love with a child had brought us there, and our love for each other and our child was the only thing to get us through it. I am a father – I held George’s body in my arms, a body that grew inside of me for almost 20 weeks, and I held space for him after he was delivered, even though he was already dead. I held space with an unspoken understanding of the sacredness of what had just happened, and for the simultaneous beauty and immense sadness of the fact that I was holding my son.
George’s death is the only one that I occasionally have “what-if’s” about – what if we had decided not to induce delivery after my water broke, to see if we could wait until morning to meet with the specialists and see if we could maintain the pregnancy another month until he had a better chance of survival? What if that had worked? But then – then I think about what was coming with Sara – less than a month after George’s delivery we found out that the cancer had spread to her brain, and a month after that she had her hysterectomy, and less than a month after that she was gone.
The thought of those events happening while I was in the hospital trying to keep the pregnancy going, or with an incredibly fragile and survival-far-from-certain micro-preemie in the NICU… I just don’t know how I could have survived that. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of Sara the way she needed. I’m NOT saying that I chose to allow George to die in order to care for Sara – I didn’t know then in the moment what was ahead of us. We made the best choices we could make with the information that we had – but occasionally these what-if’s slip in… I’m only human after all.
Sara – oh, Sara – her death was so much to witness, but there was no place I would have rather been at that time than by her side. Unlike with Elvis and Tyger, I had absolutely no control over the situation – I was literally just waiting for her to die. I suppose technically I had some control in that I agreed with her doctor that it was time for hospice (as she was no longer able to make her own medical decisions), but in reality – there weren’t really any other options. There was nothing left to do medically, and it would have been cruel to try to prolong things or insist that the doctors tried other treatments when it was clear the cancer had dealt it’s fatal blow to her human body.
The last day of Sara’s life, from the morning of November 1st through the morning of November 2nd, was all about surrounding her with love and trying to make sure she was comfortable. She got more frequent pain medication and I periodically moistened her lips. At one point they suggested we remove her oxygen cannula as it’s not normally kept in use for hospice patients in the condition Sara was in, but I gently asked that we keep it in case it could help her hang on just a smidge longer for her parents. After the last visitors left us late in the night on November 1st, I curled up in the chair next to Sara’s bed and dozed off and on. Something woke me early in the morning, a change in Sara’s breathing. I immediately realized that she’d just taken her last breath. I kissed her face and touched my forehead to hers and told her I loved her before calling the nursing staff to confirm that she had died. It took a surprisingly long time for that to happen – the nurses came in, and then they had to get the on-call doctor who took probably 10 minutes to show up. Altogether she was officially pronounced dead maybe 15 minutes after she took her last breath.
I stayed with her and made some calls – before too long, my mom and Sara’s best friend arrived as support. We stayed until her parent’s arrived a little later that morning. Unlike with Elvis and Tyger who were taken away from our home after their deaths, I had to leave Sara at the hospital to go home without her, and it was the most surreal experience driving away from the hospital that day.
Those are my stories, my experiences of carrying the role of being a witness to deaths of beings who were much beloved and so significant in my life story. While there were absolutely tears during all four situations, I was able to mostly hold it together, in part due to the fact that there was nothing I could do to change any of the situations, but also because a part of me acknowledged the sacredness of what was happening (despite my desperate wishing that it weren’t). I was determined to honor the role I’d been thrust into by holding the space with love.
I hope that I get a break from having to play this role for a while – it is necessary because death is certain for all beings at some point, but it is also heavy and I am tired.
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