I feel so sad that people are dying alone,” I say to Imogen. “The coronavirus restrictions aren’t compassionate. Everyone deserves to have their loved ones with them when they’re dying.”
I hope I don’t die alone. Am I unusual? Or do most people prefer to die by themselves?
The other day, I read an article online that said that the dying don’t want their loved ones to experience the trauma of sharing their last hours. They want to die alone.
“Who did the journalist interview to come to that conclusion?” I ask.
Imogen says, “The dying?”
“They’re the perfect people to interview, aren’t they?” I say. “It doesn’t matter what the journalist writes, they can hardly come back and protest, ’Hey, I didn’t say that! You’ve got it all wrong. I would have loved to have had my family by my side.’”
I’m not convinced. I think the journalist is putting a positive spin on the current restrictions. Maybe he wants to reassure the relatives of the dying: Don’t worry. It’s okay. They don’t want you by their sides.
Witnessing the death of someone we love is very traumatic. If we had the chance, would we avoid the pain of sitting with a loved one as they left this world? Are people secretly glad the current restrictions force them to stay away?
When I discovered that our son Thomas was going to die, I didn’t think I could give birth to my baby, hold him while he died, attend his funeral, and then watch his coffin being lowered into the earth. If I had to do all that, I was convinced that I wouldn’t survive.
For five months, I cried.
Then Thomas was born, and Andy and I spent a day and a night at his side in the NICU. On the second day, our other children arrived, and we became a complete family for the first time: two parents and six children. Then a doctor disconnected our son from all the excess tubing and placed him in our arms, and we took turns holding him close, whispering our words of love that were mingled with our tears as he quietly slipped away from life.
A week after Thomas died, I followed his tiny white coffin out of the church. I stood by his grave as it disappeared from sight.
I did what I thought I couldn’t possibly do.
I didn’t leave my child to die alone. I was there, holding him close to my heart as he departed this life. I didn’t stay away when he was lowered into the ground.
Love overcame all my fears.
Thomas, I love you, I whisper through time. I am so glad I stayed with you until the end.
And then suddenly, I’m thinking of something else:
“That article,” I say to Imogen. “What if the journalist was right. People might say they’d prefer their families to stay away because, yes, they don’t want them to endure the trauma of watching them die. But that doesn’t mean they’re not afraid of dying by themselves. All it means is that their love for their families is stronger than their fear of facing death alone.”
Love: it helps us to do the impossible, doesn’t it?
