As a follow-up to last week’s JOLT column, I have two stories to share about this paradoxical gift of facing death’s inevitability and why it matters.
Three weeks ago, I underwent elective surgery. For weeks before the procedure, I was filled with indecision about whether to go through with it. I was afraid of the unknown and knowing too much. I feared a bad outcome, including death, despite choosing the best surgeon for the job.
Facing those fears, I remembered eight years ago in my first days as a hospice physician, two of my social worker colleagues independently asked if I had completed my advanced directive. Sheepishly admitting I had not, each returned waving the paperwork. “Do it!” they said. Despite my best intentions, I filed those documents at the bottom of my long-term, to-do list.
Propelled by the fear of surgery and acceptance of my age, I decided it was time to move my end-of-life responsibilities to the top of the list. The reality is we never know when death will come. As mature adults, we take care of these details and thus take care of the loved ones we leave behind to clean up our affairs.
My mother is a great role model. At age 92, her end-of-life wishes are in impeccable order and regularly updated. There are many details to consider, all of which are very personal decisions.
I began by completing the extensive and thought-provoking questionnaires that came up pre-operatively in the University of Washington Medical Center’s MyChart. I filled them out in their entirety despite being undecided on plans for my body after death. I shared them with my son and partner, who I am grateful took the time to listen to my wishes before the surgery.
Pulling out my 13-year-old Will, I found it needed updating. At the long-delayed appointment with my attorney last week, I asked him if I should also appoint my Power of Attorneys even though I am not facing death in the foreseeable future. His answer was, “I advise all my clients of any age to do it now because they may get hit by a bus walking out of here.” I will also complete my advance directives with him.
Glen Harper is a wise elder spearheading the death-positive community that is growing in our area. Death Cafes is Glen’s nonprofit link that explains what a death café is and the schedule of regular opportunities to attend one.
“The level of interest and attendance in the cafes is evidence of the appetite for such conversation in Thurston County,” he reports.
I have worked with many esteemed professionals in the field of death and dying who possess extensive intellectual and experiential knowledge of the field. In interviewing Glenn, I felt I was sitting at the feet of a master. He has read every book imaginable on the topic of death and dying, and quotes from them seamlessly in the flow of our dialog. He is a trained hospice volunteer and death doula, as well as a certified home health aide.
He has facilitated more than 100 Death Cafes locally in the last two years. Death Cafes create a space to welcome conversations about death that people naturally avoid. They are for everyone, at any age or stage of life, not only those facing terminal illness.
Glenn often observed “the cone of silence” that surrounds those who have a terminal diagnosis and around those left behind after the death of a loved one. In a death café, attendees can break through that cone of silence.
People show up for each other and listen. Together, he shares, we can face the reality of our impermanence, talk about it, and shed the stories we created to believe that death was somehow avoidable. In compassionate community one can talk about our fears of death, confront our avoidance, and face the inevitable.
Ironically, after participating in a Death Café, attendees leave enlivened with a sense of relief that it’s OK, it’s natural, and affects us all. They experience the gift of relief that results from coming to terms with the inevitability of our impermanence.
Glen’s passion for conversations about death came after emerging from his own “dark night of the soul.” His spiritual awakening began the day he walked into the Mason County Senior Center.
There he was warmly welcomed by a community of elders, most 20 years his senior. He observed that despite their age and infirmities, those elders were full of joy. They had each other and lived as if “they were on their last bottle and were savoring it.”
It was life-changing for him to witness and experience, and led to his passionate exploration of joy, aging, and facing the end of life.
He had two epiphanies:
An early aspect of Glenn’s spiritual awakening was coming to terms with aging and embracing what he calls “elderhood.” His three keys to aging well are:
Referencing author Ernest Becker in “The Denial of Death,” Glenn says we need to let go of the story we created in our youth about who we are and what is our place in the world. As elders facing the last chapter, we need to unmake ourselves and create this final chapter for ourselves. We are free to cultivate a new story since we have always been our life’s editor.
Who were you and who are you now? Start writing your story for this chapter whichever one it is. If you are unsure, start anyway. Share your story with others, especially the ones you love. As you do, your story will emerge to edit as you choose. It is your life. Start now because it is life’s irony that we cannot know when it will end.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” - Mark Twain
Facing the reality of our inevitable death makes each day more special. This was the gift of my work in hospice. People imagine hospice work must be painfully difficult. It was some of the most enlivening work I was privileged to do. I learned from my patients what Glenn has learned following his passion.
I sense we are witnessing the front edge of a wave that has the potential to change our entire cultural story about life and death, compassion, and connectedness.
Jump into your life, go to a Death Café, and write your story.
Olympia Area Village is a nonprofit
Glenn’s nonprofit Elderhood Senior Alliance includes the Death Café schedule and more www.elderhoodsenioralliance.org
Link to this Saturday’s First Annual Death Care and Life Transitions Expo.
Olympia Area Village, a local nonprofit whose aim is to connect and organize to provide services and opportunities to help members continue to live independently. For more information, click here.
See prior columns for dealing with the end-of-end-of-life logistics and hospice.
Debra L. Glasser, M.D. is a retired internal medicine physician in Olympia. Got a question for her? Write drdebra@theJOLTnews.com
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Snevets
Thank you for sharing your own experiences. I plan to attend the weekend expo.
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