Get Ready to Die 2

God, what are you the most morbid person in the world, actually not, but somebody needs to talk about death, and as my wife likes to tell it, I am the one. So I figured to blog death through 4 cycles and hopefully leave it alone for awhile. See, I have gotten the role of Grim Reeper down, according to her. It started like this. Her father was terminally ill and I was the person who happened to be with him when he expired, the moment, the last breath he took was with me. He was a great guy. I had already been present at the deaths of two brothers, physically present. Then there came a series of the ladies. The widow in her 90s with severe failure to thrive and dementia. I sat with her and told her that it was ok for her to go home. I talked with her for two hours. She of course did not hear or understand me. But I told her to go and join the others who had gone before her. I left her sleeping and two hours later I got the call, she had passed peacefully. My wife who witnessed each of the episodes swears it was me that sent them off with my talk, and she started ribbing me about it. My wife sort of gave me the look then and I joked that I was something of a harbinger. But the widow was actually number 3. There was another widow of 90 plus years , to whom I had given the same talk, and there was the spinster aunt who was released to go My wife started to come around and not be totally repulsed by the idea, after I explained to her that they need not hold on in their suffering and need to be allowed to say goodbye and need to be allowed to go without guilt. I did have the talk with my father in his last days. In each instance they passed within hours of my talk, which is not a brief little glib, Ok , you can go now thing. I believe it that people at the end of their life need someone to assure them, talk to them, laugh with them, remember with them, but I hope not to have to talk to anyone more like that, for it drained me in each instance. But if needed I will do it again. I don't pray over them, but rather have a conversation with them. My mother in law is ill, I suspect I will be having another conversation with her soon. I hope it will be about good times and sunshine, walking on the beach, the bright and the beautiful.