Death Bed Blues: what if healing IS the last thing we do?

photo: Dina Stander

There is a passage I notice (some) dying people make close to end of life, within days of last breath. They express a reflexive response to something they perceive happening in the space around them, whether or not what is happening matches their perception. This response appears to come from a place of distress but is not what is typically described as agitation. The expression may be verbal or it could be a gesture or an attempt at motion. As I've come to understand it, what I'm witnessing is the self-protective last gasp of a human being's core wound.

For one person, people talking (about her?) in the space nearby was so disquieting that she mustered the energy to form words for a small plaintive request, please don't make fun of me. Her people gathered to her then with reassurance and loving attention. Another time I was keeping company with a peacefully dying man who was completely at ease and semi conscious. Out of the blue he was desperate to leave the bed. But he could not rise without supporting arms, could not stand, could not form words to express what was clearly fear. I fretted over the cause until I realized that I was seeing his instinct to protect himself from being punished for wetting the bed, learned in very early childhood. It would accompany him almost to last breath. When I told him he was safe and the bed and his brief were dry his agitation faded.

With a goal to reduce suffering, in these circumstances a caregiver's next steps are straight forward: see distress, intuit a cause, respond and soothe. Like many aspects of end-of-life care, its not so complicated.

What's trickier is sitting beside dying people and wondering what my own abiding stressor will be. What early trauma will linger with me till last breath? Is there a sorrow, fear, anger, or other strong emotion that will trouble the waters at my dying? Then, before I can reveal all that baggage to myself (whew) the next thought leans in close and whispers, what will letting go look like? what can I do to release and unwind all that so that I don't carry it all the way to my ending? What healing can I invite to ease the places scraped raw by letting go?

Here's the thing… I can intuit the nature of whatever wounds these folks carry, I can reassure them they are safe, that there is not more for them to do, that at last they've gotten everything right. Or at least close enough. But I'm not sure I want to know the nature of my own last-to-go core wound… What if healing that is the last thing we do in the human adventure? I mean, I think I know what it might be, after all there are a few to select from. Its not like I've forgotten the shit that went down or the dangers informing my early sense of self.

But also, I have forgotten. And I'm not keen to recollect the details. So I'm gonna let my sleeping dogs rest some more.

Because, really its not so comfortable to contemplate my own dying. I know this because a necessary discipline of death doula practice is sitting with one's own mortality. And making friends with Death, even when thats an uneasy thing. And. When its “my time” and I get to that moment where I'm having a last reflexive go 'round with the thorn in my side I want someone there to help me ease it out gently, to say the soothing thing and just let it bleed. I want someone to hold hands with me and let me know its ok, that I don't have to figure it all out. That I'm loved and not in trouble for being unfixable and myself. I want someone to sing me some Death Bed Blues. Because, like each and every one of us, my heart calls out for mercy.