Good Evening My Friends: 

Well, I thought about whether I should stay true to my journal and write about what is going on step by step and decided that if I am to share with you all that goes on throughout my journey to the end I must stay true to myself and to you.

Today I was focused on thinking about death and dying. My father who if you knew him you would be amazed. He is 81 and until a few months ago still road his bike up to 5 miles a day. On the treadmill his heart rate only gets up to 101 that is how great of shape he is in. My father has always taken care of himself. He has a strict German mindset that has been passed down for generations in our family. I am the first to break it and boy did I break it  (smile).

We do not believe in getting ill and if you do get ill, you do all you can to support your own body, mind and will to heal itself. Our whole family has died throughout the ages of old age and never does anyone go to the doctor or the hospital unless of course you broke something but for anything else, we heal with faith and doing all the natural things to support the body to heal itself. It has worked. My father has always eaten right, exercised. I have never seen my father ill. But now things may have changed. He had to have a colonoscopy because of blood showing up. They found two tumors and a polyp. The polyp was removed and they have taken a biopsy of the tumors. They are “suspect” for cancer. This has devastated me today.

I know and we all know that the end for all of us is dying which has always amazed me and I have studied and thought about this phenomena for a life time because it just seems to have so many contradictions to me.

We live our lives as if there is a tomorrow. We focus on petty little dramas, hurt each other, are very self focused and build a world around every thing that denies that there is an end much less it being death.

Then we have taken death and made it socially such a negative and heart wrenching experience.

I often wonder why societies took death and dying and made it so negative, scary and such a doom and gloom experience.

I wonder what we would be like, what going through threatening illnesses and dying would be like if we had made it a positive experience that we celebrated like other transitions, birth, graduations, weddings.  I saw a movie once where a father was dying of cancer and he handled it very matter a fact. He told everyone, he talked about his experience. He went to each of those he loved and cared about and talked out any unfinished business. He got all his affairs in order. He handled it with such dignity and like it was just a transition from one situation to another. Then instead of everyone waiting until he died and then having a wake I guess it is and a solemn funeral where everyone wore black, cried and reinforced this doom and gloom experience of dying, his family put together a huge party. They invited everyone in the family, all his friends, co-workers everyone who would have been at the funeral and they had a huge gala. Of course he was the guest of honor. But they all were up, happy, laughing, talking about the times they shared personally with this man. He went around and talked to everyone. It was terribly moving and such a great idea I thought. No one was sad, no tears except of heartfelt emotions. Instead of everyone getting together after he was gone when he wasn’t there to enjoy their company, what they had to say and feel about him and for them all to show each other the love they felt, he got to really enjoy seeing and feeling his whole life sharing it with those who had traveled this life with him. It was wonderful. He died two weeks later a very happy and at peace man. He missed nothing. They had no funeral, which cost way too much for just burying a body. They spent the money celebrating and giving this man the greatest gift anyone of us could have and it was happy. It made me think maybe death isn’t so bad and doesn’t have to be such a doom and gloom fearful experience that really ends up being such a trauma for those left behind. Then you don’t put all this money into something that is so sad, so traumatic and have everyone rally around to look at a corpse in a box that cost $10,000.00. How gruesome.

If we made it a ritual that was happy, loving, natural and shared the whole experience with the person we were saying goodbye to I wonder how different death and dying would be in this country.  I wonder how many things about life it would change for us and how we lived our lives. Why do you suppose we did and do make death and dying so gruesome and so dark and scary?  What do we get out of that instead of doing it where it is as natural and as big of a celebration as birth. I mean we may not remember being born but it is a traumatic experience and not a pleasant one for the baby. Maybe death is the same it just seems the way it does because we made it that way by our inventing rituals that reinforce it as a devastating loss that people actually have to go into counseling for, some for years. I know when I worked at the Hospice we had support groups for those who could not get over the death of a loved one. You can not tell me how we are taught our whole lives, what we are shown, how it is talked about and how we keep death and dying in the shadows of life, that this does not affect all of us and not in a healthy or healing way.

We all have our theories, our beliefs and our religions but no one knows for sure what is after death if anything. It is all based on belief. No one has literally come back like Houdini and gotten on TV and said ok folks this is what it is all about. I mean if anyone was going to come back it would have been Houdini because he was as obsessed about death as anyone and he promised if there was a way he would come back.

Every year on Halloween, the great magicians of this country get together and try to contact Houdini, but to this day it has not happened.

So no one really knows what is after life ends here. That is part of the mystery, part of the fear of the unknown and part of why we keep it still in the back rooms and treat it as the worst tragedy that one can have told to them or have happen.

Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Bernie Siegel tried to bring death and dying out into the open and studied it as a science and with spirituality. I studied both of their works and still do.  But as a society we still didn’t feel comfortable with looking at and having death and dying in the forefront. I now as a nurse it is still an uncomfortable subject and not treated as it should be in the hospitals or ER’s.

It is not a subject that is well taught in medical school.
Here it is the one guarantee in life. The most absolute guarantee and after thousands of years we are still keep this subject taboo and very uncomfortable. In fact you may not even like me writing about it. I don’t know that I am so comfortable writing about it. But because of my situation and now my father’s it has come to my mind and is something I must pursue to find peace with it.
When my dad told me of his news I immediately went into a dark place and broke down into tears. My mind has been going in many directions and I know me. I have to process it and go where I need to go to find peace so that I can come to terms with what I don’t want to happen, to lose my father. Yet, all my life I have known like you about death and that it would come at some point to all of us.

We are funny creatures when it comes to so many important and real issues. We go into denial or just build a world around what we want to be true, skimming over the most unimaginable or those issues we do not want to face because we can find no peace in the “unknown” especially when it is going to happen to us.

It is better to focus on sports.  You know sports is so much more important to us than death. Why is that anything to point out because death is real, is guaranteed and because it can happen at any time, which should make life that much more precious but it doesn’t. We kill for the most insane reasons. We have more information, more rules, more coverage, more respect for sports than we do for death and dying.

Yes, we are a funny in our socialized thinking and how we choose to handle what we find most uncomfortable or just don’t want to have happen.

I haven’t got it worked out anymore than anyone else because no matter what like I said it all comes down to a belief no proof which makes coming to complete peace with death something I am not sure anyone can do. You may say you have but when the time comes or when that of a loved one comes I wonder how many people end up reacting the way they “thought” they would. Acceptance, yes I know people who have come to acceptance but that is different than complete peace.  Sort of like there is nothing you can do about it so you might as well accept it. Now I kind of envy these people as they are able to give in to the mysteries of life without missing out on living or going to pieces with dying. They have something that just makes it all OK just because they accept that this is the way it is so go with it. Maybe I can get to that place someday or maybe my make up is such that I have to have more.
But I do envy their simplicity, their willingness to just let go and give in.
What a wonderful frame of reference to have about life and death.

I think I will work on that one as I have never been one to be simple.

Yes, just writing it feels good and makes me want to pursue that feeling of total surrender which is what I think it really is.

I am just not sure my mind will give me that kind of break J, it has to “know” and everything has to make sense to my mind.

I do know I am not alone or death and dying would not be in the background, treated so dark, so traumatizing and all our rituals would not be so negative and reinforcing that death and dying is fearful and negative experience.

Something is still not right with us or we would be having that celebration party like that man did. I am not sure I know of one business that does that sort of catering yet. Do any of you know of one? I sure would like to know if there is one out there. Is there a business that makes death and dying a celebration, a transition that we share with the person before they go? If you do know of one please write me and give me their address and phone number. I will get back with you on this if I get any emails about this.

But until there is and we start changing our mindset and how we treat death and dying it is a tragedy that lasts a life time.

I also wonder why it is the one mystery of life, the only one guaranteed mind you, that we are given no concrete, beyond a doubt, not even a hint as to why or what happens and I don’t mean a belief. Don’t give me a religious belief as being guaranteed because I can answer that one right here and now it is a belief, until you have been there it is a belief.

For now my heart is aching for me about my father. We will hear next Thursday as to whether the biopsies are negative or not. I will let you know.

If you have any comments, any enlightenment on this subject I would love to hear from you. With all that is happening with me and now my family may be facing another crisis, your stories, your words of experience would be most helpful.

For now Good Night and God Bless,

Talk to you tomorrow,

Your traveling companion Mary-Anne

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