When we or someone we love is told they have limited time to live we are often filled with all kinds of feelings and questions. There is anger, denial, maybe hope for a miracle cure. If there is a faith, a calling out to a higher being for help, support, understanding, healing or a smooth transition. Maybe there is acceptance or even relief.
Perhaps more often, all of it at once in a kaleidoscope of emotions, thoughts, feelings and behaviours. None of which feel like the right response, usually.
I dropped everything and faced death
When or if we are told a timeline, we ought to take it seriously.
So often our response is, “yes, but ….” followed by all the reasons the time line may not be correct. A miracle cure, a positive mental attitude, a new drug trial, the love of those around them. But that timeline, usually offered by an experienced medical professional or maybe someone who has lived this path before. It is not a random number, it isn’t a guess or plucked from the air. It is their informed thoughts. They will be aware of the impact of offering it to you.
Get affairs your affairs in order. Enjoy the time you have. Words we hear, thoughts we have. All familiar at this time. It is not just the dying who will gravitate into facing death, it is those around them too. We will all reflect on, “what really matters”. The reality is, in the end, we all drop everything and face death. Theirs and our own.
Things will only get tougher despite how manageable it looks at first
This is the bit nobody really tells you about as an end approaches, for many at least is, it only gets tougher. It is manageable when they are still able to laugh and smile, to discuss their wishes in a ‘when the time comes’ way. When they still look well really, when you can still enjoy a day out or a familiar hobby together, when they can still eat and drink normally.
Then you notice it has changed, you never know when was the last time, at the time. But you realise afterwards that was the last time, there will be no more trips, cups of tea … conversations. But we are not prepared for how tough that feels. The sadness when we know they will no longer leave the bed they are now in, and some days there is still laughter, but one day that stops too. Then there is no half smiles either, then the eyes don’t open, “But they can still hear you”.
It changes from hospital appointments, to short terms stays, perhaps emergencies, and ultimately the conversations about final wishes care. It becomes who will leave the bedside, or not, and are they waiting for us to leave or shall we not leave them alone. It is the, I just want to hold their hand, please don’t go, it is ok to go, moments.
It’ll get more unbearable – until it’s all over.
I heard a friend say upon losing a loved one, “Don’t go into denial and take it as it comes. It won’t get more bearable. On the contrary, it will get more unbearable until it is over”. And I realised they are right. That is what happens.
We can plan the transition from this life, we can endeavour to face it in the way we choose. Yet one day, the pain, perhaps physical and emotional, is unbearable. Sometimes it is within the endings, sometimes it is in the grief afterwards.
But if you know that pain, you know there is no other word for it than, unbearable.
Then one day it is more bearable
Then there is the bit there is no time line for. The next, the after, the life beyond. All I know, from the inside, is that one day the pain of loss is more bearable. Not because we choose it to be, but because we are starting to heal around the pain.
Then there are all the other emotions. Resentment at the healing when we are still grieving them. The guilt we laughed or forgot just for a moment. The anger of the unfair, or the heartbreak all over again at the small reminder at the back of a drawer, the playlist, the bookshelf, the cupboard, the weather, the date, the first something without them.
Just breathe
That is all we can do. Breathe through it. Be it a heaving sob, a gasping wail, a panic intake, a slow deep breath to settle. When it comes to it, all we can do it breathe.
This is a personal reflection of my own experiences of grief and is not intended as a way to navigate your own experience.
This piece was inspired by the comments of a friend, grieving a loved one, and it is shared respectfully in their memory and with gratitude the world is a better place because they were in it.