Lessons in death and dying, a special gift

How different the world has become. This world where Jenny walk no more.

Is it the loss of someone so close? It did feel like a part of me had died.  Or like the loss of a limb,   as CS Lewis has once described? That well known and inspirational author of so many books had once associated the loss of his wife to cancer to that of having an arm amputated. I hesitate to agree with such a comparison. Both are sad and hard to bear. But how would he know? Has he actually experienced living with an arm amputated? Or even the loss of a finger or some other appendage? Try telling that to the once abled person who now sits on a wheelchair because of his amputated legs.

But my world has been transformed, nevertheless. And permanently so.

Is it the memory of being there to watch her die? Even as it was an expected outcome. Even as we were in search and praying for a miracle to come and help fight off the disease. A miracle that, quietly our rational minds knew would not happen.

I will be haunted by the memories for the rest of my life. As long as I remain sound of my mind and my memory intact.  I will remember.

Witnessing that extraordinary alteration of a living thing becoming an inanimate object, feeling the warmth in her hand turning cold and stiffening as I held it for the last time. And the moment when her embattled lungs decided not to inhale anymore. That single moment would be an experience to last a life-time.

The resonance of death would ring and echo all around me for the rest of days.

Not that death is new to me. I had attended countless funerals, mostly of aged parents of friends and colleagues. Many years ago, I had kept watch of a college friend suffering from severe brain haemorrhage, eventually losing his life. In more recent years, a few close colleagues and relatives had fallen sick and died. My father at the age of 86, succumbed to pneumonia only a few years ago. Death will visit us frequently enough to remind us of our mortality. And the finitude and fragility of our physical selves.

But with Jenny’s passing on, I would now understand death like never before. The real lesson of gone forever has been finally delivered.

Even as this new-found existence still feels strange. It has been more than 7 months. But I still struggle on how to really deal with the idea of her absence. Her infinite absence.

30 years ago, on the church altar, we exchanged vows. “Till death do us part”.  But until she got stricken by this terrible disease we could only guess who would be the first to die. Who would know? It is not in our hands, unless we are suicidal. But in the unlikely situation of both of us being killed in an accident or some catastrophic disaster, we knew that one fateful date, one of us may have to witness and bear the pain of watching the other die. And be left widowed or widowered.

I had sometimes jested with her that with my stressful job and feebler state of health, I would most likely be the first to go. I talked about building my bucket list. Things I need to do before I die. As if the bucket was mine to be kicked first and sooner. 

“So you are so sure you will die first? And leave me all alone? You are really mean.”

The thought of being a lonely and a not-so-old widow must have displeased her. She shot a disdainful glance at me and my morbid suggestions before turning away.  Unlike me, Jenny was never comfortable about casual talk about death and mortality. Especially if it involves either of us.  Perhaps in keeping mum on the subject she understood death better than me. I would need a real lesson like watching her die to understand the terrible pain of death and the impending loss.

I sometimes wonder if Jenny’s passing on has spared her of the pain of watching me die instead. How would she have coped with life without me? It would not be any easier. In outliving her, was I the luckier one? Or the less fortunate?

I sometimes wonder too if Jenny’s passing on has offered me this one important lesson, much as it was not one I would have asked for. But one which I might have needed more than she would.  The lesson in death. Of dying with dignity and grace.

I may have made light of the idea of dying in the past. We all have either laughed or made jokes about death and dying. But going through or witnessing this inevitable process is an entirely different matter. Has Jenny offered me the gift of learning of death so I will be better prepared when my own expiry date draws near?

Being so near to her, feeling the last traces of her life-force trickling out of her, I was offered front-row experience to witness this extraordinary transformation. When she turned from living to non-living, physical to meta-physical. In so doing, I had tasted death.

Not just for me. The rest of my kids were there too. As if in her dying and semi-conscious state she knew and had bided her time until we were all together, united by her bed-side.  We were blessed to be there, together as a family. As we should be.  She could only leave us once and the moment would be forever missed if we were not there on that fateful morning. 

She has shown us how to die. Gracefully and in dignity. Something I can never be sure I am capable of.  

It is a special gift from her, my dearest beloved wife. I like to think so.