Spurred by Julie Myerson’s story, readers share their own:
My mother had a good death. She died in 2006, two days after gall bladder surgery. The surgery was “successful” and she was at home (she lived in a retirement community). I was not there but my sister was. Mother was sitting in her living room chair working a crossword and died very suddenly. Why this was a good death: 1) she wasn’t alone; 2) it was very quick; 3) it was (apparently) painless; 4) her greatest fear – losing her faculties – did not come to pass. Everything about her death was “auspicious”, and this has made my grieving process very easy. She always said, “If I ever get to where I can’t take care of myself, just shoot me.” I wouldn’t have done this but I can certainly understand the sentiment.
America’s handling of death is horribly backward. Everyone from their late 20s on (or even earlier) should have an advanced medical directive made. If you ask doctors what end-of-life treatment regime they want, invariably they select the least intrusive and aggressive option possible – because they have seen the hideous pain wrought by aggressive treatment.
Another reader:
My Dad died of heart disease. As his heart was failing, he considered surgery (even though he was already in his 80s) and the docs would have done it but for the fact he also had COPD and they knew they would never get him off a respirator if they did bypass on his heart. So I watched him come to terms with his own death (the day before he passed, he asked his doc if there wasn’t something to be done, only to be told no). He died in the Intensive Care unit after first refusing to use a bed pan and insisting he could still walk to the bathroom, and he had his last heart attack in that way. So he went out on his own terms, and I’m proud of him for not giving in, even when he had nothing left to give.
My Mom died a couple years later of complications from Alzheimer’s. Her decline was agonizing.
There came a time when my brother and I confronted her doctor about all the various prescriptions she was still taking in the nursing home, and he agreed that some of what she was getting was no longer necessary. To some degree, that might have hastened her departure, but at the same time, she was already so far gone that it made no sense to keep pumping various medicines into her, including the drug she was taking to slow the progression of her underlying disease. She actually passed away from pneumonia, and the doctor and nursing home honored our request not to take extraordinary measures even though they had never signed a medical directive.
I was present when they both passed, and though that didn’t make it any easier (no amount of forewarning can change the pain of losing a loved one), I never regretted anything we did to make their last few months easier. I have friends who think we should have done otherwise with regard to my Mom, but they are wrong.
Another:
My father died last year at this time. My sisters and I spent his last 3 months taking turns being at his home, taking care of him and just saying good-bye. We always knew that he wanted a natural death, did not trust doctors and wanted zero intervention. In the last months, he was genuinely frightened that someone would intervene. It was to the point that we could not even say the word “Hospice” as it sounded too much like the word hospital and it would send him into a panic.
Every person that was allowed to enter the house had to first promise that if he had any type of event or, frankly, looked like he was about to die they would NOT, under any circumstances, call an ambulance. He had a brain tumor and we were essentially just waiting for the end. I think it was the greatest show of love that we could spend those last months protecting him from the medical establishment and made sure that the end of his life was as he always believed it should be.
Many people tell me they are sorry for my father’s death. I am not sorry at all. He had a wonderful life. He raised three daughters, got to see all of them married, with children and in fulfilling lives and died with his beloved wife at his side. Nothing to be sorry about at all. He had a good death to go with his good life.
One more:
My mother’s death also was as good as I can imagine one to be. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 76, her response was something like “It’s about time.” She’d been a smoker since her college days, and had tried to give it up in her 40s but then decided to stay a smoker. I think she was relieved that she would go quickly from cancer rather than have it take years with something like emphysema – but we never discussed it.
She refused chemotherapy – it might have given her a few more months to live, but she’d have started feeling awful right away. All of her family and all but one of her friends supported that decision.
When discussing what she wanted as a service, she personally shopped around for the cheapest cremation she could find. She didn’t have any directives what to do with her ashes – she said that was our problem. She read about a memorial where people sat around telling stories and eating and drinking. So she and her best friend (who also smoked since they were in college together but had given it up 20 years earlier) went to one of NYC’s swankiest funeral homes to check it out. When they asked who the deceased was, she said “Me!” Turns out New York law forbids food at a funeral home, so her friend agreed to have the memorial at her apartment.
She was given hospice care. A nurse came to visit her in her apartment weekly. She told the nurse that she didn’t believe in god or an afterlife so they discussed books every visit. The nurse gave her a comfort kit that included a low dose of some morphine. She didn’t take any till very close to the end, and was amazed at how good it made her feel. DUH. Not for the pain, but it slowed her body’s need for oxygen and she was short of breath.
She did have her doctor prescribe a presumably lethal dose – it was such a high dose that the pharmacy didn’t stock it. She made arrangement for me to pick it up, but it didn’t arrive till a day after she died.
She was in very little pain (or so she said) till the last few days. The hospice nurse had her admitted to the facility – they thought some radiation might relieve the pain for a little while. I went to see her that day and she was in good spirits. While I was there she actually made calls to her mutual fund company transferring money to an account where it would be easier for me as her executor to retrieve. She smiled and told me what fun it was making those calls. My sister who lived farther away made it up the next day and my mom passed that night. She had been given pain medication – that was her wish – so I’m sure she wasn’t very lucid at the last. I think she got the radiation treatment but I really don’t recall. It obviously didn’t matter, she wasn’t in pain at the end. It was about 4 or 5 months after her diagnosis.
The hospice was a Jewish one, and the next day I got a condolence call from the rabbi who said he’d been able to see her and pray with her the evening before she died. I thanked him and didn’t have the presence of mind to tell him that was probably what pushed her over the edge.
I have no regrets not being there as she breathed her last. We had said all we’d needed to in the weeks and months before she died.
The Dish 