Why I Believe # II

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross found that transparency was one of the beautiful qualities of those approaching death. We have found that to be true with the many patients we have been with as they have come to terms with facing their own death.  And that transparency tells us about what really matters most— that nothing matters more than how we have cared for each other.  In our personal lives, our level of caring is what we are most acutely aware of, and we are more transparent in that area than we are willing to recognize.  It is love that enables us to be able to take the risk of being open and embracing, versus the fearful who conceal their inner selves.  In so doing they send subtle signals that warn us that their guard is up, and if we are wise, we respond accordingly.  Occasionally, perhaps with gentle probing, we discover a real person beneath that protective barrier.

In this essay I will describe how my own anger and inner fear had been a handicap and a burden for me for too long.  I know that hospice volunteer work, has been for me, a liberating time of spiritual learning and growth.  I have come to believe that transparency, in who we are and what we feel, is essential, especially in the fragile presence of those facing death.  At such a time, there is no need for us to see each other in any way, other than as we really are.  We can bring with us a sense of peace, of beauty and hope, when we are open and completely disarmed. 

I struggled with inner conflict for too much of my life.  My mother was an angel, but my father was certainly not.  I was brought up as a radical fundamentalist, a religion which requires sinners to be saved from their sins.  So, for a part of my life, I was “saved” (sic) sometimes not and sometimes pretending, always with burdens of fear and guilt. One of my basic fears was the fear of hell.  That fear had been ground into us early in our religion.  The fear of falling into hell had been amongst my earliest nightmares.  And though later, when I had come to reject the rigid tenets of that religion with its doctrine of hell, I had wondered if I had really abandoned that fear that had been ground so deeply into my psyche. 

I received a positive cancellation to that fear, but it came as a shock.  On a dark rainy night on an unlit section of road, I ran off an unmarked end of a road under construction, and totaled my car and almost myself too.  There were no warning signs or barricades!  Later, in the hospital, conscious, though aware of imminent death, I desperately wanted to live. At that time, I positively knew that whatever God there might be, that I had nothing to fear, that a decent God would accept me, just as my friends do.  Miraculously, the turning point came and I knew that I would live and it was like the first day of the rest of my life! A close-to-death experience can be like that!  Also I knew that I had confronted death, and I knew that the fear of hell was no more.  I was liberated from the fear of hell.

 I still retained the pain that had endured from my childhood to adulthood, and that I ascribed to my father.  I had recurring angry nightmares involving him and for years, they refused to disappear, no matter how much I wished them to. In the meantime, my wife June and I had been pioneers in helping establish a group home and workshop for the retarded in our community. Then I had volunteered with a telephone help-line group.  It was a new experience, listening all evening to the many problems of people of all ages and stations.  It required the development of listening skills.  Next I volunteered with Meals on Wheels.  I discovered people in isolation, some very much in need of an organization like hospice, but there wasn’t anything like hospice developed as of then.  Such situations distressed me and I felt guilty. Though I was doing all this service for others from a genuine public spirit, I still was troubled with my nightmares.  I wondered whether that residual anger from that unhealed wound inflicted decades earlier could ever be erased.  Surely, I must have known, at some level that my own unhealed pain inevitably and unconsciously must cast a shadow over whatever I might attempt to do for whatever worthy causes I might engage in.  Then along came hospice!

Ned was my first assigned hospice patient and he had a limited life expectancy.  He was a well-recognized citizen in the community and he was a huge man.  I had never met him before and I had deep apprehensions that someone, so very ordinary like myself, could become a supporting friend at a time of great need to such a man as Ned.  Then I discovered how very vulnerable he was and all I had to do was just be myself.  I soon became so absorbed in my new friend that I completely forgot about even trying to be myself.  I took him to familiar sites in the city, to places where he had worked, such as the dry-dock and we would just sit and have coffee.  One day I took him to the mortuary for the final arrangements.  He had to order an oversize coffin because of his size!  Then I took him to the head-stone makers for him to choose his monument and the inscription. But, to tell the truth, in spite of the obvious opportunity to talk to Ned about his approaching death and how he felt about it, I passed it by. It was an unfamiliar subject for me then.  Often he told me of his grief over his two daughters’ lifestyle and how his relationship with them was complicated, and why, though he cared deeply for them, he felt that their problems were not his fault.  He had been a corvette captain in the Canadian Navy in World War II and he told me many stories of his convoy activity in the Atlantic. 

Then one day in late autumn as we were driving along the river, where the trees in the Northeast were in their most brilliant colors, Ned spoke of the breath-taking beauty and then he asked me, “Cliff, what do you think it is like to die?  Do you think it is just like going to sleep and not waking up?”  The question startled me, though it should not have, so I just answered, “Ned, I really don’t know.”  I should have felt free to discuss with Ned how he felt about his approaching death, but obviously, I had fears of some kind of my own that inhibited me and I felt uncomfortable talking about death, as many people are.  No one had ever asked me such a question before. 

Perhaps it was because his wife was difficult to be with, that he had few friends to come to see him.  We volunteers made our own rules about how much time we would spend with our patients, so I had been coming to be with him on almost a daily basis.  In the few months, it seemed almost that we had formed a lifetime’s friendship. Ned began to fail from his cancer and because he was so big, when he reached the point when he could not care for himself, he had to be hospitalized.  Just before the ambulance was to arrive to transport him, I sat and talked with him.  Ours had been a most unusual friendship for both of us.  Ned had told me so much about his family, his wartime experiences, his work, his hobby, his acquaintance with the British Royal Family, etc.  It seemed that perhaps he had told me more of his life story, more than he had told anyone else.  Just as the ambulance attendants arrived, Ned looked at me and said “Cliff, I wish that I’d gotten to know you a lot sooner.” What could I say?  I held back my tears, not knowing that it would have been perfectly acceptable to weep at such a time.

Ned was quite unsuited for hospital living and he rapidly began to fail.  On the last afternoon, he was too weak to more than whisper.  I tried to understand what he was trying to say, but I didn’t.  The two hospice nurses were also there and one was a recently ordained Episcopal clergy.  I asked her if she could understand what Ned was saying.  She understood that he was asking for the last rites!  The nurse-clergy softly recited that beautiful rite requesting God’s blessing for a safe passage for our dear friend.  Soon Ned took his last breath.  One of the nurses covered his face and we embraced each other and silently wept.

Ned had a most profound influence on me, more than he or I would have ever anticipated or could have been able to describe.  That he had honored me be sharing with me so much of his life’s story was such a privilege.  The more I thought about it, the more I became aware of how important it is for the ones approaching death to be able to describe their life story before they must bid it their final farewell.  And to just think that I had been the one who had provided him the listening ear and the time! From that time on, I never experienced nightmares again!

Each experience in life changes us in some way.  I am thankful for Ned, his love of life, his utter transparency that melted me, the poise and grace with which he carried himself till his death.  It is true, you can find beauty as you face death!

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