I have spent the week in a hospital room, and then a hospice room watching my Great Aunt slowly pass away from a stroke. I am to the point of acceptance of what happened, though it does little to ease my mind. I do not have the faith of an after life which comforted my Aunt, and now comforts the rest of my family. She felt she had lived a long and fulfilling life. She more then once said she felt her mother's arms wrapped around her while she laid in her bed. She knew this time was coming. Her last year was spent preparing everything for when this time would come. She invested the majority of her life to taking care of other people. So much so that even when she was in and out of consciousness she stressed about all the details. She wanted to make sure she wasn't a problem to any of her family. Which of course we had under control, and wasn't a problem to take care of her. This is not my first exposure to a slow death. It is however, my first time in dealing with it as an adult. When you're young and this sort of thing happens there is often confusion, as an adult there is more of an understanding even if the helplessness remains. There is often a different role to fill with those around you. Regardless what time of your life you start dealing with death, the selfishness of wanting to keep your loved ones around forever doesn't change.
Anytime you're dealing with death it's hard not to look at life. When I look back over the years that my Aunt and I spent together, I'm fortunate to not have many bad memories. I was always lucky in the fact that she rarely picked an issue with me. She used to get annoyed with me because I would often parent her about her diabetes. I was always harping on her about her food because I cared about keeping her around. She lived with us for awhile in High School, and it used to frustrate me and now it makes me laugh that she used to "hide" candies and stuff around the house. We would find Ho Ho's and candy bars all over the house. My family and I would just shake our heads about it. Honestly, I can only remember one real fight with her. I was 17 and her and my father had (in my opinion) ganged up on me about my lack of religion. Whereas this normally wouldn't have bothered me, it was the manner in which they portrayed me. They treated me as if I was ignorant and a lost soul. They pitied me, and I felt had questioned my intellect. It is the only time I can remember ever being that upset or hurt when it came to my Aunt. I left both of them at her house and ran almost the entire few miles back to my house. We never again discussed religion together.
My best memories of my Aunt are when I would visit up to Indiana from my home in Florida as a child. She would get together with me almost every Sunday I was up visiting. She would take me to Versailles and we would stop at Dairy Queen. She would get a cone and I would get a chili dog. We'd head over to Versailles State Park and hang out at a picnic table area and eat and talk for hours. Occasionally, she would drop me off at the pool for a couple hours. I always looked forward to those Sundays. I wish now that I would have let her know how much it meant to me that she took the time out to get to know her great nephew. I will remember her as a caring, loving woman that gave a lot of her time to taking care of other people till she needed to be taken care of. I'll remember how fat she made all her pets! How much she loved nature and music. I'll laugh when I think back to every time I drove her somewhere no matter how slow I drove she would hold the door like we were in a Dukes of Hazzard car chase. Or how she drove her mobilized chair with reckless abandon. She'd crash into her walls, and anything in her way including her obese little lap dog that couldn't get out of the way quick enough.
She will be missed by everyone from her sisters to her great great nephew. My son was lucky enough to have known her in his life. I can take comfort in the fact that before she passed every single one of us was there at one point or another to tell her goodbye and that we loved her. When it comes to death and loved ones this is rarely the case. She didn't die alone and we all know she was able to see how much all of us cared and were there for her in the end. So while I'm sad at her passing, I have to be happy that she got a final sendoff from everyone that loved her.
I look at my life and think what have I done yet? When I pass what will my friends and family remember? Have I represented the me that I think I am? While I am aware of how morbid of a thought this is, I want you to share it with me. So puppets, here is your homework. I want you to look at your life right now as is, and think or write down what you would want people to remember about you. Are you living that life now? What would you need to do to get to that life? See if it shakes anything up in your life. If you're sick of your rut, what about yourself could change that? Well, I hope you take this as deeply as I am, and if it can change anything in your life then I feel I'm doing what I should be. And for a change slow dance with a loved one tonight.
Mr. J
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