The First Word
by Julie Parker

"I'm not afraid to die," she'd say with a grin, "I'm just not packed yet."
My mother–Irma Stevenson Parker – was 81 and had recently been diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis...commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She did her "I'm not packed yet" routine when she was diagnosed, when she met each new doctor in the five months between her diagnosis and her death, and most pointedly when she and the doctor (who was the medical director of Solace, the residential hospice in Asheville) interviewed each other when she was deciding if that was where she wanted to go.

We are born, we live, and we die. In Mother's world view (and mine), Death is as much a part of the Divine Plan as Life, and to be embraced with equal enthusiasm. She was bemused by those who held so tightly to life as if Life were made by God and Death by 'The Devil'! Death was not, for her, the ultimate tragedy—just a doorway to what comes next. Why not step through with joy, into the arms of God? What irony that so many of those who profess to be devout do everything they can NOT to "meet their Maker"!

Mother drew to her others who supported her in her journey, and joined her in her irreverent attitude toward what for many is a journey they take kicking and screaming.* My cousin Katherine (one of her irreverent crew) spent the last 10 days with us, for which I will forever be grateful.

Mother made her final trip to the emergency room on Mother's Day five years ago. She was admitted to Mission Hospital while we were all trying to figure out what to do next, and finally was admitted to Solace, where she ended up spending only four days.

There came a point that I had to make the decision to remove her feeding tube. (If we'd realized her final days were going to be so few, she would never have agreed to having a feeding tube inserted to begin with.) My decision was not a difficult one. I loved my mother beyond measure and I fully supported her in her decision to let Nature take its course.

We faced her last days together, Mother and I, with a sort of Thelma-and-Louise leap into the unknown. Her final leap, though, she took alone. (They'd warned us at Solace that people often choose to die alone, when loved ones have left the room. )

It was May 22nd–a picture postcard day. Katherine and I decided to take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway after sitting for days by Mother's side. I had my cell phone to check in, but we couldn't connect while we were on the parkway...until I got to Graveyard Fields. It was there I finally reached Solace, and they told me "Come back NOW."

We turned and started back, and as we did, we looked east into a perfectly clear, late afternoon sky. Clear, that is, except for a magnificent pink and gold cloud formation that looked, quite literally, like the Gates of Heaven...with one 'arm' reaching straight up above. I looked at the clock...and found on our return that was the exact moment of her death.

Her legacy? Courage, humor, curiosity, fearlessness, and an exit that was not about a hanging on 'for dear life' to a broken body, but rather about embracing the passage, even painting a picture in the sky for us for us of its beauty as she stepped through the gate.

My Mother died. Why shy away from the word? (Or as my friend Abraham says, she "croaked".) She did not "pass away", she didn't "succumb", and she certainly didn't, for heaven's sake (yes, pun intended!) "lose her battle with ALS". She made a conscious choice when to make her exit. She loved her life, but at the end, her view of life was "Been there, done that, have 81 years worth of t-shirts. What's next?" She reached eagerly for "heaven"...grateful for her life, grateful for her death. And what a sense of humor: really, Mother, Graveyard Fields? You GO, girl!

* A footnote: A nurse on the staff at Solace told me that some go kicking and screaming. One woman who was resisting it all the way one day banged furiously on her buzzer, and when a nurse flew into the room she shouted "Will someone get these damn angels OUTTA MY ROOM?!!!"

N.B. Now that I have the attention of more than 25,000 witnesses, DO NOT under any circumstances, let anyone do to me what they did to Terri Schiavo, forcing me to live long past my natural time of death.
If you don't have your own magazine with 25,000 reader/witnesses, you have already made your wishes known, yes?

Do look up agingwithdignity.org/5wishes.html (or ask your doctor, local hospital, etc. if you are not online). The 5 Wishes document will help you articulate details of your medical, personal, emotional and spiritual wishes, and it is legal in North Carolina. The actual document is at agingwithdignity.org/5wishes.pdf.1-888-5-WISHES (594-7437)

 

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