Comments - Emily Dickinson, buttercups, and death
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| # Emily Dickinson, buttercups, and death Poetry Unbound Jun 7 332 284 34 |
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
For the eleven years I lived there, my mother always said she wanted to die in the living room (ah, the irony) of my hilltop home, looking out at the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain. However, her last illness took place in North Carolina where she grew so weak she could not travel. Nine days before she died, she paid a fortune to have an ambulance transport her, it took them 19 hours, from North Carolina to my Vermont living room. Hospice put a hospital bed and oxygen in that room, taught me how to care for her, and for nine days my mom, Toby (my gentle Labradoodle) and I listened to Bach and watched the Greens. The sunrises. The changing colors of water and sky. The red geraniums in the window boxes. I administered so much morphine and held her--her hand or body. Toby and I slept on the couch adjacent to the bed. She died at 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday. It was agonizing and good enough.
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A woman with agency even in death.
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Lyn, what care you brought. My heartfelt condolences.
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Hugs. I feel this so deeply. Thank you for being there for your mom.
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Heartbreaking and good enough. Hugs 💜
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Thanks, Jae. 💜
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Dear Lyn, what a vivid compelling description of living the last nine days of your mom's dying. Thank you for the depths of your generosity in sharing it. Do you know this poem of WS Merwin? I discovered it today and thought this was a good place for it: https://merwinconservancy.org/poems/rain-light-by-w-s-merwin-2/. Hugs, Emily
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Thank you for sharing this gorgeous poem.
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Yes. Thank you, Emily. And W.S. Merwin
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How lovely that she came home to die. That's really precious; thank you
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Exquisite, beautiful poignant.
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What a beautiful gift you and the hospice team gave to your mom, for her to be there with you and for you to be there by her side watching over her . I loved your description of noticing how the environment around you was changing as well. And Toby...your sweet pupparoni, was there for both of you <3
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Oh Lyn both my mother and father died similarly in the room where I am now.
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That is such a wonderful loving, description. Thank you
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I too cared for and held my mother's hand. Deeply grateful for that. Wishing you peace.
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reading your comment.......and sending care.........the red geraniums really moved something within me..........a memory perhaps........may gentle love wrap you in care during this time.....
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I’m so glad she ordered a completely extravagant ride from North Carolina to Vermont. Some things are just too important to hold off. And blessings on you for your loving care to the end.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Hello all. My sister died by suicide during Covid. She had bipolar disorder and had been suffering for a long time. I've resisted the 'released from pain' frame; it feels too small for her. But she was someone who deeply touched many lives, and as I went through her papers, I came to think she knew something about what she needed. Whether that counts as 'good enough' I still don't know. Carrying my remembrances of her feels like carrying her through that field of buttercups. She was beautiful, fierce, and aching. Your line, Pádraig, “One of the strange things about being alive is that death is part of it.” That sentence is reverberating in my bones. We’ve lost more than I knew I could bear, and I'm aware now that death is no longer something happening elsewhere or to others. My sister walked into that truth before I was ready. I'm still catching up to her.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Thank you, Lisa Marie. I am loving this line: "Whether that counts as 'good enough' I still don't know.” I’m aware as I’m reading all of these tender shares this morning that, in some ways, we are asked to be the judge of what is good enough. There is some magic in saying something is good enough—but in your post I felt the magic in not knowing. The respect and heart it takes to not know. My heart aches at the feeling of you still catching up to her.
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Jo, thank you. I’m especially moved by what you said about “the magic in not knowing.” That feels true to my experience…that love and grief sometimes ask for witness more than conclusion. Thank you also for hearing the ache in “still catching up to her.” It means a great deal. The prompts that Pádraig gifts us lead always towards the profound - but I am with you that this week there are some truly “tender shares”.
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witness more than conclusion - precisely this, yes.
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Lisa, what a poignant line:”my sister walked into that truth before I was ready”. Thank you for sharing the grappling inner work to move through the loss and grief. Thank you
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Joy thank you for receiving it with such kindness.
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How wise and true Lisa, what Joy quoted. I don’t know how I could get ready for the loss of one of my four siblings. I’m the oldest and still pray that they will all just wait their turn. Blessings on you, Lisa, as you treasure all you learned from her papers.
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I still have all my siblings who are precious to me. I hear you.
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Patty, thank you, and all good things to you and those four!
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Your striking, beautiful reflection reminded me of the words of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. Rolheiser argues that suicide is rarely an act of despair, but rather a "terminal disease" and a "tragic breakdown within the emotional immune system," similar to cancer. He compares the act to someone jumping from a burning building to escape unendurable pain. Sorry for your loss, Lisa.
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Michael, thank you for this rumination, I had not heard it before. It certainly resonates.
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Michael, are Fr. Rolheiser’s words in one of his books? Thank you.
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Fr. Ron has been writing an online weekly column for many years and he dedicates at least one column a year to the topic of suicide. Feel free to explore his site:
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Lisa, thank you for sharing about your sister. I am very sorry for your loss. I really appreciate how you are approaching her being gone as catching up with her…profound.
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Ah, Lisa Marie. This is beautiful. And I am sorry. ❤️🩹
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Thank you, Lyn.
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“She knew what she needed.” Something I’ll ponder a long time with immense respect.
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Margaret, thank you for writing. It felt true as I went through all the things she left behind...
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Lisa I think you’re right to think your sister knew what she needed. Best to trust. It seems that level of despair must be beyond our understanding, but we know the decision was made beyond having a choice to stay. You and she are two distinctively different beings. Your sensitivity to others is a blessing. You do not need to catch up to anyone.
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Lynn, you are very generous, and intellectually I agree that there is no competition. But despite that, death no longer feels like something happening somewhere else, to someone else. It feels nearer now, and I’m still trying to understand what it means to live with that knowledge.
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"Carrying my remembrances of her feels like carrying her through that field of buttercups," is such a beautiful analogy.
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Thank you, Barbara!
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For dying’s but a door to grace
We meet God's love, face to face
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Thank you, Andrew.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
In 2004 my mother was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. I was pregnant at the time with my first and only child and living 8 hours away by car. Since we were keenly aware that she didn't have many days left, we began to spend more time together. After my son was born, we spent a week out of every month with her. She reveled in being a grandmother. We went to the beach. We played outside in her yard. We went to the county fair. She watched my son learn to crawl and then finally walk across her living room floor.
After chemo and radiation stopped working, she chose to stay at home for all of her hospice care, and my baby and I moved into her house full time. We sat by her bedside and sang songs and traded stories. Company came and brought delicious food. The church choir sang one night from the kitchen while our minister held her hand.
We narrowed the circle of caregivers down to immediate family and closest friends. We took turns sitting by her bedside talking to her and singing to her long after she could respond other than to keep breathing. Early one morning almost exactly two years after her diagnosis, she stopped breathing all together and was gone. Although devastating to me, her death could not have been more peaceful.
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Hope, as a new grandmother, I could not imagine anything more loving to give to your mom. I can only imagine how much she must've enjoyed watching her grandson learning to crawl and then take his first steps. What an amazing daughter you are!
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Monica, thank you for your kind words. Spending that time with her did not feel extraordinary. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
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Hope, My husband also died of pancreatic cancer at home with our grandchildren visiting when they could. You gave your mother so many gifts in her last days. I’m sure she held on to you and your beautiful name. A peaceful death is the best we can hope for. Your mother was so fortunate to have your care.
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Cynthia, thank you for this.
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Thank you for sharing this. Those grandmother days are holy and precious indeed.
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Hope, thanks for sharing this. Sending love to this memory.
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How beautiful that you made those two years precious. May your family be blessed forever by her love.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Perhaps a “good enough death” is one whose memory resurrects some thought of gratitude for the life that was, which, upon remembrance, becomes the life that still IS, which is life that can never die. In my care of bereaved through grief support groups, I assured them that, though death can kill a body, it cannot take a life. May it always be good enough. May Peace abide in all our remembrances of lives loved.
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So beautiful —“although death can take a body, it can not take a life. “ thank you.
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Amen!! This is most certainly true.
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Jun 7 Edited
Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
My Dad was (is) a good man. Humankind is one great adjective to describe him. Another is "short". Even at five foot two (an inch or two shorter in his last years), not a single Dad I've ever met measured up to him. Ask anyone lucky enough to have met him or loved him - they will agree.
You're right, Padraig. It is painful to write about his good enough death. I think it can be summed up with this story.
I was on the night watch of his hospice care. Two nights before he sighed his last breath, an unfamiliar clanking noise startled me awake. I jumped up from my makeshift bed next to his, scanned the room, and noticed he was missing. What? How? Where the fuck is he? I heard him cough in the adjacent bathroom, saw the light under the door, knocked, listened for his raspy "come in." He was standing, gripping his walking aid with one hand and trying to flush with the other. He whispered, "I didn't want to wake you up". And then he proceeded to shave off his beard (his first beard ever) that he had grown in the two years after Mom died. He said, “I want her to recognize me when I get there”.
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Oh wow, Jae. What a story. I can feel the panic of not finding your dad and the turn to finding him and what he was doing for your mom.
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Ah Jae. “Even at five foot two (an inch or two shorter in his last years), not a single Dad I've ever met measured up to him.” I adore this and am moved by the story you chose to share.
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beautiful
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Jae, I couldn't help but giggle to myself when you woke up and thought, "Where the Fuck is he?!"
I can tell it was important to your dad to look his best for your mom...Love that so much <3
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Yeah - we had been helping him out of bed and to the bathroom day and night for the past two weeks. I was so confused!
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Beautiful story to share Jae
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Jae, this is a great story about a great man. What a scare to see the bed empty! His response to you as he shaved his beard is precious, unforgettable. It speaks of his enduring love for your Mom. One great legacy.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
On June 4, 2023 my mother took an unexpected fall on our patio while we were celebrating the birthday of her great-great grandniece who was turning 2 years old. Lying in pain on the ground while we waited for the ambulance, she looked up at my then-husband, an emergency physician who was crouched down next to her and said, “Oh shit.” She knew she had a broken hip, and she knew what her odds were as an 84 year old. Those weren’t her last words, but they were her last coherent words as she began having multiple small strokes. She died on June 7, and today is the 3rd anniversary of her death. As we sat with her in the ICU before they withdrew life support, we played her favorite songs from her iPod, she was covered in her favorite quilt, and her family gathered round. I held her hand whispered to her that she could let go; that we would be ok; that she’d done a wonderful job raising me (her only child) and her 3 grandchildren, who adored her as she’d lived with us for nearly 30 years. Several days later we had a catered memorial service out our house. My mother was a crafter and artist, so we had an origami folding station, we decorated plain white kites (flying kites was a delight of hers), people ate and drank, laughed and cried and shared Donna stories. A video of her at all ages played on a loop to the sound of her favorite songs. It was the kind of memorial she would have wanted - a party with all her loved ones and dear friends. I’m crying as I write this; I miss her so much. Her memory will always be a blessing. I love you, mom. ❤️
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I love the origami station, and kite decorating activity... I imagine the loss is still so great, but you have shared her with us... I imagine her fingers, patient and surprisingly creating grace for her grandkids. her soul flying above you on a white , decorated kite.
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Ooof - so much beauty, so much pain. So much good enough and more. Hugs. 💜
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Beautiful tribute Erin. I am sending my very best wishes to you and your family.
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Erin, the kites! Your Mom’s gifts soar in this beautiful telling. May her spirit continue to bless you.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
My sister passed away on January 3rd of this year, after twelve years of Parkinson’s. One of her last utterances was “Aren’t we so lucky?”. I wrote a sonnet with that as the title.
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How beautiful is that?
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
After a nearly two decade decline of dementia, my father passed seven years ago. When my sons & I went to say our final good-bys to a man we loved but who no longer knew us, my 15 year-old observed, "It's like Granddaddy is there but he's trying to get out." As I am a French teacher & it was July 14 - the day which commemorates the fall of the Bastille prison - I was inspired to write a poem entitled "Independence Day" which I read at my father's - a retired Baptist minister's - memorial service. It concludes with the following lines:
You left us in love to be freed by
the Lover of your soul, your heavenly King
welcoming you home, good and faithful servant.
Citizen, you are free indeed
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Dawn, what your son said is so insightful-trying to get out. Now another dear friend of mine is also “trying to get out.” Incredibly difficult to experience this slipping away. Thank you for sharing.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Thank you for bringing me back from the no-good deaths. I have been around a lot of those in the police. But causing me to reflect on the good ones is a gift.
My mother in law was a lovely talented woman, skilled in crafts such as lace making. After my father-in-law died we became close as her health deteriorated and we went together to hospital appointments.
On this particular day we expected the arrival of her GP so went downstairs to wait him while she had a rest.
He arrived so escorted him to her room she had left. Asleep but the sleep of eternity.
It was a good death.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
My friend died of breast cancer last year. When she went on hospice, her family put the bed in the bay window so she could see the sky and hear the birds. Friends would come and sit with her and talk, share stories, play songs on the guitar. She said to her husband, "who knew dying could be so much fun!"
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Alice, what a wonderful spirit your friend had. Thanks for this.
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What a blessing that your friend appreciated beauty to the end. May her memory and wisdom continue to give joy to the living.
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Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Two good enough deaths were my mom and dad’s death. They were both tender-hearted in the way they lived and loved, and their love for each other was deep and radiant. I saw that my mom was scared when she knew she had only a few more days to live; of course she was. My dad, who died two years after my mom, was ready to die; of course he was so he could meet up again with mom. My parents had a profound faith in a loving God or, should I say, they were captured by this dynamism of love. Mom died at 82, dad at 83 — they live on.
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Jun 7 Edited
Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Wow, Pádraig, this is a moving river to be invited into—thank you, it's good to spend Sunday morning with the dead. I am thinking of Andy Zuckerman—forever the young man he was when he died. I met Andy in college. He was a stinky, dirty, feral, brilliantly curious, and daringly intimate human. He was born with a hole in his heart and traveled directly from the womb into open heart surgery. He had an unusual openness and I always connected this to the conditions of his birth. There was no one on earth remotely like him—he carried astounding contradictions with conviction and grace. We shared a fierce and familial love. He felt like a brother. He cleaned himself up on account of his love of Laotian culture and moved there as soon as he graduated.
I think he was 24 years old when the motor bike he was driving hit a pot hole and launched his body into a construction site, where he met with a certain, sudden, and dramatic end. The two even younger passengers on his motor bike were bruised up, but otherwise fine. A week before his death, Andy had reached out to his ex-girlfriend in the states. He told her they should find a way to talk that week, before he died in a motor bike accident. WTF, Andy — how did you know?? Did you even?
His funeral was a grief-ridden college reunion—perhaps the only experience I have of grieving appropriately with beloveds. We had a few days in the New England woods to go feral, swinging together wildly from laughter to tears. I remember thanking him then for giving us all a reason to cry together. He was so young when we lost him, but I’ve talked to him a lot since he died and he is right where he wants to be. That feels good enough for me.
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Jo, your writing is, as ever, so evocative. I can see Andy clearly in all his wildness and singularity, and I can feel you and your friends with that permission to go feral. “He is right where he wants to be” - that line. There is something so loving, perceptive, and steady in that ending. Thank you for the gift of this pondering.
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I love the way we are getting to know each other's stories <3
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I love how this question arrived just before I continued work on a unit for my sophomores called “What Makes a Good Life?” We will study that question all of next year, which will be my last year in teaching and will lead to my retirement, which is itself a kind of ending/death, though one with a party/memorial that the guest of honor gets to attend!
As to a good death, I think we had one for our cat last month. We four humans took off work and school to be together one last day, letting kitty S. listen to and watch the birds, chipmunks, and rabbits feed in the garden up close.
We called S. by all his nicknames and enumerated his excellent qualities. A vet came to the house and let us take our time and sob openly. S. passed quietly in my husband’s lap.
We let his sibling and two feline “aunties” sniff him. Then we buried him in the side garden right next to the birdbath, where his grave is planted with dahlias and poppies. Those critters are scampering about even now, and I can see him from my morning seat. He was a marvelous little gentleman, taken too soon.
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We had something similar with our beloved cat. It was so good to be near her when she died and when I was sure she stopped breathing I called my husband who she loved more as a rainbow emerged in the sky. When he arrived home she started to breathe in gasping breaths and as soon as he held her she stopped breathing for good.
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What a beautiful moment, Amy. I am glad they were able to be together in the end.
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S. 💔 May his memory be a blessing. (((((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))
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An English grandfather born in 1918, took part in the D-Day Landings and lived until he was almost 101. His wife, my French grandmother who lived in Brittany, France under Nazi occupation died a year later at 99 years old. They would have experienced so much trauma but there was a lot of love, care and support. A good life in the end. So in the end a good death.
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"A good life in the end. So in the end a good death." That's the key, isn't it?
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I have yet to sit by a peaceful passing or even a good enough death of a human though I know they exist. Difficult deaths I have sat by caused me to awaken to the possibility that I could be better prepared. They asked me, can I be more ready for the future death of loved ones, myself or anyone? That question has taken me on quite the adventure into the death depths of what this living body might be about, and out into the reaches of the natural deathcare community.
Try as I might though to be prepared the universe will have its way. There’s a beautiful liberation and sad surrender in that truth. Either makes me more alive. I do dream of my death in old age. So romantically, I hear bee’s humming and flowers everywhere. What a gift that would be.
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Elizabeth, may it be so. And may you be blessed with many decades to get it all together.
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Thank you for this blessing Patty
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Last year, our cat passed away in our front living room, as our 3 elementary and middle school-aged kids were gathering their backpacks for school. The children stood in the hallway for a moment, looking wide-eyed at her still body, gently wrapped in a towel. (Mortality has a way of opening our eyes a bit wider.) It was a striking juuxtaposition - the intensity of the moment, alongside the seemingly mundane task of putting on shoes and heading out the door. Death and youth facing eachother. Our cat Maebe got to be with us and not alone at this moment, and she had lived a long life. I was sad to lose her and glad that she would stop suffering; grateful for the reminder of what's precious. Perhaps that was a good enough death for that sweet soul, a good enough goodbye for us, her human family.
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