Death ends all lives, but some deaths are harder to bear than others.

Death took our beautiful little sister last week.  She dealt with cancer with strength, courage and grace, with God’s help.  We miss her terribly.

Our experiences with death when we were very young:

We grew up in Central California on a dairy ranch.  There were plenty of animals, and their deaths happened as a matter of course. We buried at least one kitten, a baby bird, a snake, a toad, and many others. Dad took care of the occasional dead calf. Burying dead critters was a passing phase; when it was over, dead things were left for grownups to deal with.

The first human death we remember was from an accident on a neighboring ranch. The boy was riding with his dad on a tractor that flipped.  There were no safety cages or seat belts back in the 1940′s, and he was struck by the equipment. We were about 8 years old, and very curious. Dad drew a picture of the upside-down tractor and the child for us, which helped. We were too young to attend the funeral–it was something for the grownups to handle.

Over the years, a number of great aunts, great uncles and their relatives died. Death came to our remaining great grandparents, as well. We knew practically nothing about these people except that they were distant relatives. categorized  as “old people.” Mom always sent sympathy cards and she sent flowers to those she or Dad knew well. We have dabbled in family history a bit, and marvel at remembering hearing about many recorded ancestors when we were very young. We were also aware of deaths of Mom’s and Dad’s friends, from time to time. We even attended a few of their funerals.

A family death while we were a young adult:

This was the period in which a family member’s death became a reason to gather people from all over the country.

Our little brother, S, died of meningitis when he was 14. We were away at college when he became ill, but drove home with other students. We awoke the next morning to Mom’s best friend coming into the bedroom and saying that he had died a few hours earlier. S. was 5 years younger and tended to play with the youngest two siblings. This was the first time we remember feeling grief, which came after the numbing shock wore off. We expected that a reaction would occur, but were surprised at how much we missed him. We dreamed a lot about him, as well as remembering how he looked and sounded. After a while the hard pain lessened, and memories tended to be accompanied by wistfulness.

On becoming the oldest generation:

The death of a grandparent, a parent, an uncle or an aunt was hard. Most of these people were part of our lives when we grew up, and we saw them at family gatherings. Some of them were very painful to lose and others were not so much. As to immediate family, Mom and Dad were both fragile seniors at the end. They both died while in nursing homes.

We found that death’s effect on us depended on our social relationship, instead of the kinship designation. We honored the memory of each individual, but mourning and grief did not occur often.

On deaths among our generation:

Our family of 5 kids looked like this, in birth order: W (me,) P (sister,) S (brother,) V and B, twin girls.

V. died of cancer over five years ago. We were close, although she was closer to her twin and to P.

Our visit to her home in Asheville NC, four months before she died, was magical. She was feeling fairly good. She was tired, but enjoyed life around her home and yard. We re-bonded  during that visit.

We returned with P. and B. two weeks before she died. She was sick but still joined us on the porch or in the living room. She was buoyed by the energy from the love flowing around her. We returned home when she entered hospice inpatient care, and she died within 24 hours of B’s departure several days later. Our grief was awful, and we still miss her very much.

P. died of cancer last week. We are still numb, with tears flowing easily.

She was one of our closest friends. We attended U.C. Berkeley at the same time, and our weddings were only a few months apart. Our kids were about the same ages. She lived mostly in the Midwest, while we lived mostly in California. Distance was frustrating, but we phoned a lot and also used email. P. allowed us to share her experience of dying, and she handled it as elegantly as one can imagine. She and I would compare her then-current symptoms to timeline lists in the hospice book and she would remark, “Nope, not that,” to symptoms not in evidence.  She had time her to finish all of her projects, and she took care to leave M, her husband, with everything in order. Losing P. has left a big hole in our life—we miss her terribly.

Retrospective on death:

• We are still a little surprised, if not a little guilty, to realize that only a few deaths, among all those we have lived through, led to mourning.
• We are amazed at how much it hurts to mourn someone.
• We are grateful that the intensity of emotions tends to wane, over time.
• We are mindful of the need to recognize the death of each person as a change that bears notice–these events matter.
• We have learned quite a bit about dying because of our two gracious sisters who shared their dying with us.
• We give thanks for faith and its comfort. P. shared that she felt as though she were going home.
• We will support the hospice movement eagerly: the care and relief from suffering they provided our sisters was awesome!

Related articles

• Three things people can learn from dying hospice patients(vancouverobserver.com)

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