One Last Gift
Dying is different when you know the timeline.
Some people in the hospital die suddenly as the result of a crisis.
Others know with certainty that their end is near. This knowledge can be a strange gift. People have the opportunity to reflect on their lives and to say goodbye to their loved ones.
Helping others navigate this journey is not easy, but it is powerful. I recommend keeping it simple. A Palliative Care physician came up with four phrases for the dying to say to their loved ones.1
Please Forgive Me.
I Forgive You.
Thank You
I Love You.
They are obvious, but often go unsaid. We could be more intentional about expressing these sentiments in all our days, not just our final ones.
Which ones are the hardest for you to say?
Is there an invitation here for you to say one of these phrases to someone in your life today?
At Christmas, I’m always reminded of a special case of “I love you.” This tender story may break and warm your heart, as it did mine.
Melanie was a divorced mother of two in her late thirties. The cancer that started in her breast had now spread to all the places where cancer has no business being. She had been in and out of the hospital for several months and several years on top of that. She decided to stop chemo and move toward hospice care.
When I asked her how she felt about dying, she said “For myself, I’m fine with it. This is not living and I’m in so much pain. I fought for so long, but this cancer is clearly going to win. But I break down when I think about what it will be like for my girls.”
She had two young daughters, aged 4 and 6. Melanie was acutely aware of all she would miss, not being there for her girls. Her only comfort was a belief she could watch them from heaven. She told me “that’s only fair and it’s the deal I have struck with God.” She cried over the milestones she would not be there to see her girls through. As we talked, it became clear she wanted to do some work toward leaving a legacy for them.
Some parents with a terminal illness choose to record themselves or write letters with messages for their children to have as they grow up. Melanie was self-conscious about how she looked; bald, sallow and emaciated. She did not want her daughters to remember her looking that way.
She wondered if letters might be too impersonal, so decided to write them and then tape herself reading them. She wanted her daughters to hear her words in her own voice. She hand wrote some of the letters, but then her vision began failing, so she only recorded her words.
This was Melanie’s way of continually saying “I love you” to her family. She wanted that love to linger after she was gone. It was one last gift she was giving them to help them cope and to remember her and her love for them.
Melanie made a message for when her girls had their first day of school. For when they lost their first tooth. For their first fight with a friend. For starting middle school and high school. She recorded a birthday message for their first double digit birthday (10) and sweet 16 and 18.
She agonized over whether to record something for their wedding, because what if they didn’t get married? In the end, she recorded a message about what to consider when choosing a partner.
She also recorded messages for the firsts that they would be experiencing the year after her death, the first holidays without her.
For her Christmas message, she begged her children to still celebrate and be happy and sing songs. She sang “Jingle Bells” and “Away in the Manger”into the tape recorder.
I was there for most of her tapings and could not make it through without crying. I was amazed by her ability to hold it together to impart her final words.
They were mostly words of advice, sometimes stories about what she was like at those ages, often encouraging her daughters to always remain close as sisters and to take care of their dad (from whom she was divorced, so I considered this even more magnanimous of her).
Melanie was in the hospital for a little over a month recording these messages. In her final days, her parents kept vigil at her bedside. They opted not to bring Melanie’s daughters, at her request, as she didn’t want them to remember her like this. Melanie was largely in and out of consciousness at that point, her pain carefully attended to by the medical team.
I got paged to her room when she died. It was Christmas Eve.
Her room was decorated for the holiday by her parents. She was covered with a red and green quilt she had knitted a few years earlier. Christmas carols were playing on a boombox in the corner.
I listened to “Silent Night” play in the room and my heart caught in my throat as I realized that the next day Melanie’s girls would hear their mother sing them goodbye on their first Christmas without her.
As I left the room to give the family some privacy, I said this Compline, from the Book of Common Prayer. For those who need it today, may it find its way into your hearts this Christmas Eve.
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick,
give rest to the weary,
bless the dying,
soothe the suffering,
pity the afflicted,
shield the joyous;
and all for your love’s sake. Amen.
Dr. Ira Byock writes about these in detail in his book, The Four Things That Matter Most. A book worth reading on how to die and also how to live.
This was such a beautiful story and Compline such a beautiful resource for us when we don't know what or how to pray in the face of tremendous loss. Excited to read more of your work!
I didn’t cry until I started reading the compline. Death has been around me for almost ten years; my husband’s suicide, my Dad’s final moments in my arms on a hard floor where he collapsed, another husband wasting away with cancer, and my Mom’s almost calm passing from pneumonia. I hope these sweet, little girls receive loving support from their father and grandparents. I am sending them my heartfelt love.