It’s fashionable to believe that we have some control over our death – and even over another’s. Just “let go” the hospice directives say, “and relax.” Family members are to utter consoling words of encouragement that reassure the dying person that their work is finished and that what awaits them is much better than this life and this process of death. It sounds so good – we are not helpless; we have control; we can still be “master of my fate; captain of my soul.” SO twenty first century.
But when death doesn’t come despite parroting the script; when the dying person comes so close, but seems to hold back, what do I do then? I go to sleep and dream. Dream of being in the store and losing the cart that contained my carefully chosen purchases. Dream of trying to find the car in the parking lot – several times – and finding that it’s not there. Searching and searching for the car and the cart and finding neither. I am stuck. I am stranded. And so I sit. And wait. For something outside myself, out of my control. With apologies to Robert Frost, “something there is that doesn’t like this wall,” Lord.
Why not consider the Lily of the Pot … ? (See June 4, 2010 Post)
Oh.
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