A place to talk death and dying issues
Comments
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Thank you for letting us know....
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Thanks, April!
Blondie made friends wherever she went and I'm grateful to have shared her ups and downs with her here.
She and we all remain in my loving, healing meditations! ~ Stephanie
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Rosevalley and friends,
Feeling our ongoing connections -
A poem by Holly Blue Hawkins

I came upon a tattered scrap of owl feather
this morning cleaning house
while you were dying far away
carried it outside between my thumb and forefinger
carefully as if it were still alive
then I simply let it go
and to my surprise
though I thought there was no wind
a sudden breeze lifted the feather
dancing upwards over the rooftop
off into the trees where the owls live
may it be so easy
Holly Blue Hawkins
Aptos, CA 95001
Excerpted from:
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New issues of two natural death care magazines:
From the UK: https://issuu.com/moretodeath/docs/more_to_death_e...
http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk
From the USA: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1134774?__r=8...
This Canadian resource crosses national borders:
Death Midwifery in Canada: https://www.facebook.com/groups/306940662720202/
It's a movement!
I've arranged with Final Passages to have my body prepared by loved ones for a three-day after-death, at-home vigil: http://www.finalpassages.org
And, if you so inclined, there may be similar services in your region: http://homefuneralalliance.org
And, don't forget green burial, if that's your wish: https://greenburialcouncil.org
Healing regards, friends, Stephanie
P.S. for our members in Australia and everywhere: Australian author Cory Taylor died earlier this week, but not after recording an amazing interview available here - http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/conve...
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Grief
(Richard Brostoff)
Somewhere in the Sargasso Sea
the water disappears into itself,
hauling an ocean in.
Vortex, how you repeat
a single gesture,
come round to find only
yourself, a cup full of questions,
perhaps some curl of wisdom,
a bit of flung salt.
You hold an absence
at your center,
as if it were a life.0 -
Interesting article, worth reading
The 11 qualities of a good death, according to research
http://qz.com/727042/the-11-qualities-of-a-good-de...
Excerpt:
A recent study published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, which gathered data from terminal patients, family members and health care providers, aims to clarify what a good death looks like. The literature review identifies 11 core themes associated with dying well, culled from 36 studies:
- Having control over the specific dying process
- Pain-free status
- Engagement with religion or spirituality
- Experiencing emotional well-being
- Having a sense of life completion or legacy
- Having a choice in treatment preferences
- Experiencing dignity in the dying process
- Having family present and saying goodbye
- Quality of life during the dying process
- A good relationship with health care providers
- A miscellaneous "other" category (cultural specifics, having pets nearby, health care costs, etc.)
This list works for what a good life would be too.
~ Healing regards, Stephanie
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Stephanie, thank you for sharing this excellent list!
I hope today finds you enjoying sunlight and the gentlest of breezes.
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Making a Fist
Naomi Shihab Nye
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin."How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.0 -
Great poems tonight! Stephanie, with a three day vigil at home after death will they be embalming you or will your body be somewhere else?
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Hi Barbe,
My body will be prepared at home by my loved ones under the guidance of Jerrigrace Lyons of Final Passages (link above). One friend will lend a massage table, another will purchase dry ice in slabs. She and the others will place my body on the ice-covered table, changing the ice daily or twice daily as needed.
A simple shroud, some flowers, and candles burning at the head of the table while guests are present.
After about 3 days, the body will be taken first to a funeral service, then to the crematorium.
We've created after-death, at-home vigils for several of our friends and it's truly a beautiful honor...the room takes on a life and glow of its own as the veil between the worlds thins. So precious.
You can find out more about home funerals by clicking the natural death care links in my post above.
very warmest regards, Stephanie
An Improvisation For Angular Momentum
Walking is like
imagination, a
single step
dissolves the circle
into motion; the eye here
and there rests
on a leaf,
gap, or ledge,
everything flowing
except where
sight touches seen:
stop, though, and
reality snaps back
in, locked hard,
forms sharply
themselves, bushbank,
dentree, phoneline,
definite, fixed,
the self, too, then
caught real, clouds
and wind melting
into their directions,
breaking around and
over, down and out,
motions profound,
alive, musical!
Perhaps the death mother like the birth mother
does not desert us but comes to tend
and produce us, to make room for us
and bear us tenderly, considerately,
through the gates, to see us through,
to ease our pains, quell our cries,
to hover over and nestle us, to deliver
us into the greatest, most enduring
peace, all the way past the bother of
recollection,
beyond the fine work of frailty,
the mishmash house of the coming & going,
creation's fringes,
the eddies and curlicues.
~ A.R. Ammons ~
(Poetry, 1994)
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May your separation from spirit and body be a peaceful one. I have read in some Buddhist texts that it takes 3 days for the spirit to fully detach from the body. I don't know. When we were in Vietnam it was so beastly hot and humid that I can't imagine waiting 3 days. We did watch/listen to a chanting service for a young man who died. His family paid the monks to fulfill a prayer/ chanting service. It was hauntingly beautiful. The chanting and music filled the walls with energy. My DH and I stood and absorbed the sounds and images. Some things you never forget. Like all the turtles in the pond at the monastery protected from becoming lunch. Our lives are full of images collected and blended together to make a quilt of life... it wraps us up and helps to carry us on our journey.
Blessings and lovingkindness to all as they journey to the threshold of life and death. Peaceful crossings.
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Wow, it all sounds so beautiful!!!
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I didn't want to hijack Rosevalleys thread. I understand her and Patty wanting to die alone under a tree. Not wanting children, family or friends to have that memory.
I think they are farther along in their thinking than I am. I completely understand and logically agree with the thought we came in alone and we will die alone.
However I'm scared and want my DAH to be there and hold my hand. I know it's selfish and not logical giving our circumstances. I hope I can see differently farther along down this road with all its curves and drop offs.
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zilll. Everyone's different. No perfect way I guess. Is doh dear husband ? I may chicken out and change my mind about being alone bug just my thoughts for now. I didn't think about hijacking roses thread but I guess I was. Oops sorry
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No such thing as highjacking...it's all organic and flows the way it needs to. Unless someone asks a specific question - but then when answered the thread should stop, no?
I don't want a death-watch over my bed. If you want to visit me, come now while I'm vertical. I don't really want my DH to see me die as I know it will cause him great pain, but I don't want to die alone, either. Maybe in my sleep would be best? I don't know....
My step-mother is visiting and I just told her last night that I won't be calling when the end is near as the kids have kind of ignored my situation so far. She asked that she be called and I will probably/maybe do that. She is only 10 years older than me and was with my Dad when he died.
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The birth and death midwife Leslene della Madre says of her book - Midwifing Death, Returning to the Arms of the Ancient Mother http://www.midwifingdeath.com/midwifing_death_book...
We don't really know much about death in a positive sense -- much of what we know, we fear. I wondered why we don't know, and began to wonder if some of the wisdom of our early ancestors could hold a key to informing our experience of how we currently see and embrace death and dying and preparation for death. I have come to the conclusion that this missing element in our death practices is the same missing element in our life practices -- the absence of the presence of the Divine Feminine consciousness -- the Cosmic or Universal Mother so appreciated and revered by our earliest ancestors.
She mentions over and over in the book that we aren't born alone (whose body did come through?) and we don't die alone (she believes we return to the Divine, Great, Cosmic, Universal Mother).
Here's an excerpt:
Allow the grandmothers of timeless time to appear before you, beckoning you to open into trust, beauty and joy. Allow a sense and or image to come to you of a loved one who is dying. Perhaps is might even be yourself. See them surrounded by caring and loving women who are tending to them in grace. See the space filled with beauty…flowers, candles, soft music, draping cloths, soft light, sweet smells of flowers and incense. Hear the women as they begin to quietly sing, forming a circle around your loved one. Their sound is like a lullaby. You sense your loved one feeling safe and surrendered. There is a feeling of wonder, magic and peace. The presence of mystery fills the space, as the natural organic process of life recreating itself unfolds. You sense your loved one beginning to let go, listening to the gentle guiding voice of one of the women who whispers softly in their ear, guiding them to let go, into the arms of the Mother. The midwifing women are the priestesses of the Mother on the side of the veil of flesh, blood and bone, ushering this precious life into the waiting arms of the Great Mother on the other side, in seamless continuity.
It is said that our true nature is 10,000 times brighter than the sun. Allow the warmth of this truth to emerge, as your loved one surrenders to the limitless space opening before them. Your loved one easily passes from this life to the next, and you remain, feeling the awe of the eternal flame of life, as it changes form. You remain, holding the space for your loved one to journey forth in a showering of the blessings of your love. There is nothing to fear. There is only love. You feel the presence of regeneration, and marvel at the truth that endings are new beginnings.
The book needs some serious editing, because it's rambling and repetitive. But she's insistent that readers learn from her many years of midwifery and work to reclaim the sacred feminine in birth, life and death.
There are as many ways to approach death as there are people approaching it...and approaches multiply when considering historical, anthropological and religious understanding.
much love, Stephanie
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Last autumn when I joined bco, it was to participate in this topic and to "meet" Rosevalley. At the beginning of November, I enrolled in hospice because of dire signs of my impending death.
Most folks with cancer who enroll in hospice die within two weeks.
I'm clearly a statistical outlier in the hospice survival group, as well as the advanced breast cancer survival group.
It's really weird to watch this slow motion unfolding of my body breaking down. I feel so fortunate to still have well functioning senses (including humor), mind and relationships. Dying with these intact would be great - a dignified way to go!
I do intend to die in the company of others, but hope to be outside beneath the beautiful sky I love so well. Much of my time is spent lying on my sofa watching clouds, sky, light and dark. I am so blessed!
btw, this topic for everyone interested in exploring mortality!
Let's share our concerns and issues about death and dying...as ma111 wrote:
This post is for those of us with concerns and issues about death and dying to talk about them.
IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE IT, THAN GO TO A DIFFERENT POST PLEASE. We do not need people telling us to live life or to hear that other people have lived a long time, we have concerns. We are living life and would like for our diagnosis/prognosis to be changed. However, we are stuck with it and not in denial.
Healing regards, Stephanie
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Yes... this thread is to explore death and dying in what ever way feels right or even uncomfortable. Exploration!! I don't own this thread and didn't start it. Life started it! Ha ha.. Thank you Ma for treading the path!
I am just tired of the long disappointed faces of my kids and DH ... mopping around and miserable. It doesn't help me that they can't pull it together. It just makes me feel badly for leaving.. like I have any choice? I would like my separation from this body to be meaningful and less emotionally painful. It seems to me that alone in that endeavor works. Maybe I am being selfish but I am not getting the support I need. DH can't talk about it and Kids are pitiful. My DD3 wanted to know about the next med?? Then I will be better? Ugh??? This is a lightening fast decline. Cancer is winning. I don't feel scared - more tired and fed up with barfing and misery. Enough already.
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rose. Wishing I could come sit with you. Just hug you and talk.
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Rose and Stephanie, thank you for always being open and sharing your experiences. It is appreciated.
I am exhausted every single day. None of my treatments to date have done anything, tho my MO says 'think about how bad things would be if you weren't on them.' Yes I understand things aren't progressing as fast as they *could* but I realize that every day things get worse.
My tumors continue to grow in size and quantity. Breathing is such a struggle and makes my whole body aches. I am still vomiting daily, tho no one knows why. They suspect it's simply a sensitive gag reflux, and the chronic cough triggers it. I've lost a significant amount of weight, which scares people when they first see me.
Now, to the emotional side... I sometimes feel like a side show. I feel people are on a death watch and treat me accordingly. Suddenly old friends go out of their way to visit and often times I feel obligated to cheer them up or put on a happy face. That is an additional level of exhaustion.
Despite that, I've modified my bucket list to include people I'd like to see, rather than places I'd like to see. I'm blessed with friends and family all over the world but cursed with limited finances and time off to see them on a regular basis.. I want to see as many special people as I can, while in the condition to enjoy the visit.
I've never been a fan of people visiting me in the hospital, so people gathering around my deathbed is out. But, who knows what I'll think when the time comes. This whole sick and dying thing is a kick in the ass.
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noni. A kick in the ass describes it perfectly. Well said.
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Oh Noni, you're often in my thoughts and always in my heart.
While it's hard for me to keep track of you day-to-day, I remember your posts about no positive treatment response and progressive dis-ease.
I wonder what it's like to be at home with a 10 year old (who's on summer break now?) and not be able to fully join in family life due to illness.
Noni, I understand the visiting with loved ones though and maybe have a bit of advice that would be helpful to you.
Please take what you like and leave the rest!
I used to have death bed visits with people where I assumed every visit would be our last. I was very careful to say, do, be what they needed - figuring that our encounter would impress on their memories. Now though we have far-reaching conversations exploring life and death, human life and eternity, love, meaning and purpose.
I also used to entertain visitors - offer food, beverages. Then just beverages (tea and filtered water). Now I tell them to bring their own water bottles and any desired snacks - I don't want any glasses or cups hanging around. Sometimes guests prepare leftover food for me to eat and do my dishes.
Last night friends brought organic chicken soup, fresh rolls and potatoes with mushrooms for me to warm and eat later.I used to get up to greet guests at the door. Now I lie on the sofa and yell, "come in". These days, most friends just come in quietly, because I'm likely to be asleep. I no longer sit up to converse and often don't converse at all.
Now select guests are asked to please do some silent Jin Shin Jyutsu with me.*
Noni, as my body changes, my physical needs change, but my desire to connect with loved ones remains strong.
I encourage you to find what's right for you and to do it now, so you've no regrets later.
Also, if you haven't begun working with a palliative care team to deal with your unwanted symptoms and treatment effects, do seek out their help. A good team is of inestimable help! https://getpalliativecare.org
Sending a very warm hi and hug from California, Stephanie
* These two Jin Shin Jyutsu videos were made by my dear friend and JSJ practitioner Elinor Biller
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Noni- I am so sad to read your post. You have a 10 year old at home. It must be exhausting to keep up with everything. The constant treatments and puking and shortness of breath. Gentle hugs to you and much sympathy. You are right this whole deal"kicks ass." Sucks. You nailed it.
The abrupt change in my health makes me realize how the cancer just sits and waits to pounce and take over. It's such a stupid disease because it kills the body it needs to live off of.. the host dies. Now what? You cancer dies with it. I have lived a good 57 years so I can't complain. The last 6 months has kind of been rocky and hard. Death will be a sweet reprieve and ceasing of misery. Peace at last.
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Rose, I am so sorry that your family cannot help you at this time. Is there a friend, a clergyperson, someone, anyone who can sit with you and comfort you?
You are not being selfish. Most people will tell you that they are glad that "mom" [or whomever] went peacefully, or sad that their loved one didn't. Your family needs to wake up and realize what is happening.
Is there someone who can sit with them and comfort them? That should not be [primarily] your job.
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People I know are ill, old and dying around me and I'm ill.
A woman who worked in the Beauty Dept of the grocery store, died in her bed last night. Worked until she died.
The grocery clerk who told me about it has a far worse prognosis than I do for her lymphatic cancer that started in her neck and she still smokes.
My little old man neighbor was released from the hospital to rehab for two weeks and came home a mess! He's been home about 8 days but his daughter already has him moving into a nursing home. I take him meals and pick up a bit, he's just getting back to his old self, after almost a month with the medical community. No matter, later this week he's off to a home and his grandson is going to be my new neighbor.
Dying is interesting business. I cry for my little old man and empathize with him on so many levels. If you snap your fingers, that's how long it takes me to become suicidally depressed. I'm aware of the problem and work myself out of it but dying is interesting stuff.
Her distended tummy, his distended tummy. Will he need those God awful drains? Will he refuse them? Is his will to live stronger than that? Will his will to live be crushed at the new home? His will to live was gone the day he returned, it's back now. He's just getting his strength back, will it be gone again because of too much medical attention from the staff?
I tease him about the pretty new nurses he'll have. I know he subscribes to the Playboy channel and up until he went to the hospital last month, he enjoyed it quite a bit. I wonder if he'll have the playboy channel at his new home? I play up the restaurant style dining at his new home and ask him if he likes the online menu. I help him plan which possessions to take. I make sure he has his laundry under control and come over each night at 10 to help him swing his legs up into the bed.
These are personal observations. Personal for me. I've been volunteering at a hospice home and it's different with people I don't know. Even the woman from the grocery Beauty Dept affects me on a personal level. I'm a couponer and she's hooked me up with free deodorant and I've hooked her up with coupons so she could have free deodorant too. She probably still has a half dozen of them left.
I'm ill. I have several more medical treatments ahead and am physically damaged by some I've already had.
I refuse to work until I die.
I refuse to go to a home.
I refuse to let the medical community physically (or emotionally) damage me again.
Thanks for the use of the hall,
cb
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Ladies,
I apologize for jumping in here selfishly, I missed a whole page of reading before I posted. In fact probably more than one. I just felt the need to release.
I thank you in advance because I know what sort you are and that I'll be forgiven.
Thank you,
cb
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cb- I love that you needed to vent and felt safe enough to unload here! What a testament to tolerance and love among the posters here - yay explore and talk about your concerns and observations regarding death and dying.. Wonderful that you are there for your elderly neighbor I am sure he appreciates it. It is amazing the stories and heart wrenching events that unfold all around us daily in places we frequent.. grocery stores, beauty parlors and shops. Dying is part of our lives everyday. If we pay attention. Lovingkindness to all!
pajim- I just read your post. yep my family thinks I will skirt the inevitable.. not. They are just like their Dad. Sigh.. I will go into onc tomorrow throw sense away and try gemzar. If it doesn't work maybe halavan and then that's it. That's all folks... beep beep... the road runner moves on. If I was in hospice then there would be counseling.. although they all have counselors. Denial is strong...
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Stephanie, I remember your post from a whole back about encouraging visitors but asking that they bring their own refreshments. I really like how you put that.
I have been trying to stay active and entertain my DD, especially since school is out. I've been using the support of many friends and family. We've done a half dozen trips in the past four months. Friends will take her for a couple of hours while I nap or relax and it works great. For one trip I tried to get shuttle service at the gate but it wasn't running, so I had to use a wheelchair. I hated it because it drew attention to me being sick, something my DD doesn't like. She is very caring and attends to my needs, but she is only 10 and it's important to me that she has her childhood.
I don't want her to see me suffering any more than she has.
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My source for contemplative meditation today:
ORCHIL
I dreamed of Orchil, the dim goddess who is under the brown earth, in a vast cavern, where she weaves at two looms. With one hand she weaves life upward through the grass; with the other she weaves death downward through the mould; and the sound of the weaving is Eternity, and the name of it in the green world is Time. And, through all, Orchil weaves the weft of Eternal Beauty, that passeth not, though its soul is Change.
This is my comfort, O Beauty that art of Time, who am faint and hopeless in the strong sound of that other weaving, where Orchil, the dim goddess, sits at her loom under the brown earth.
William Sharp (Fiona MacLeod as muse)
Thinking of all who continue the search for greater insight and guidance while moving through the phases of advanced illness. Hoping for comfort, clarity, connection, and meaning. Keeping you close in daily meditation. In lovingkindness....
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Beautiful meditation, Brenda!
It reminds me of what I shared about Zoe and Bios yesterday - eternal life and time-bound physical life.
Both weave in us, through us.
Brenda, thank you for sharing it and for staying connected with us.
Healing regards and loving kindness for all, Stephanie
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