Don’t Let Fear of Death Keep You From Last Goodbye

Everyone deals with losing a loved one differently. I kept telling myself this recently as my grandmother was dying with cancer. After suffering from many severe stomachaches, she learned that she had a growth on her ovaries. Once she was operated on, the doctors found that she had cancer and it had spread too far. They simply closed her back up.

I remember going to see her in the hospital. Not knowing what to say to her, I said nothing as my mind was tormented with the look of fear on her face. “I didn't think it would be this bad,” she said.

My grandmother went home from the hospital knowing she was dying. When I went to see her, I was shocked to see how sick she was already starting to look. We sat on the couch and watched T.V. I noticed her looking off into the distance. I tried to make conversation. “Are you reading any books Grandma?” I asked. Overcome with weariness, she had to retreat to her bedroom.

I hated myself for my weakness. Why couldn’t I think of something to say – anything – to make her feel better?

The horror of what was happening to her was just too scary to talk about. And even though she knew she wasn’t going to live through it, I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge that truth to her directly. I didn’t want to see the fear in her face my words might have brought.

She was worse every time I went to see her. She decided her first round of chemotherapy would be her last because of how sick it made her, so Hospice came in and helped. Our family rallied together to work out a schedule where we could take turns as caregivers.

I spent one day and night in that role. My grandmother got sick and vomited three bowlfuls of black liquid. All I could do was hold the bowl for her, which she clutched, resting her cheek on the rim between episodes. I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking while she was vomiting so violently there, and about the fact that I, her granddaughter, was standing inches from it all.

I slept on the couch that night to be near her bedside. Sometime before morning, she woke me and asked me if it was time for her morphine. I gave it to her, petrified with the responsibility. I must have held the dropper in her mouth a second too long, because she took hold of my hand and pulled it out.

On my next visit, I brought along funeral dresses for her to look over. I didn’t want to, but had been asked from the family to do it because my husband worked in the funeral industry. One of my aunts sat in the kitchen drafting an obituary that my grandmother would be pleased with. “What do you think, Jackie?” she asked.

My grandmother was deteriorating badly by this time. I heard her calling out the name of a friend who had passed away a few years earlier. We just kept carrying on. “Yes, I really like the purple dress,” my aunt said.

We went in to sit with my grandmother, who was getting worked up, saying she could see someone sitting on the porch. Who? An angel? God? The grim reaper? No one was there. I thought she was dying then, and I was convinced whomever she said she saw on the porch was there to take her.

One morning my sister called and said that it seemed the time had definitely come and that I should come right over. My grandmother had slipped into a coma. I was one of the last to arrive. We sat around anxiously, not really sure what to expect. Some talked in the kitchen while my great-grandmother sat quietly, alone, on the couch. I tried to sit and talk, but looked on to my grandmother. “Go talk to her,” my great grandmother said. I obeyed, but only partly. I just stood by her bed. I touched her arm and told her I was there. That was all. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want my great-grandmother or anyone else to hear me spilling my heart in a last goodbye.

Everyone gathered around her bed knowing that the time had come. We told her not to be afraid to go. So she quietly went.

Even though I knew all along that I’d regret it, the reality set in that I hadn’t communicated my fears and sorrows to my grandmother. I never knew how to console her in her time of pain. I thought about how she had spent her entire sickness in silent terror as many of us held back in our own fear of opening up and telling her how much she meant to us. Didn’t she deserve to have someone hold and comfort her? Why couldn’t I?

We moved on. My two aunts hurriedly called the funeral home responsible for my grandmother's arrangements, along the way picking up and throwing out amenities that were used for her care. Others were coordinating lunch for after her funeral service. Once alone in the room with my grandmother, I looked down at her and felt free to smooth her hair and caress her hand. I felt ashamed while I was doing this. Why couldn’t I comfort her like this when she really needed it?