The honor of the death doula

Can you imagine if nobody talked about someone's upcoming birthing process with the mother-to-be and her family? We should talk about death more, as a process, not as an ending, but a process. Doulas are becoming more and more prevelant in our society. Years ago, our communuties were the doulas. People died in their homes, surrounded by the generations. My mother told me many stories of relatives dying in the home, while children went on with life, buzzing about the home. I always felt being able to die in one's environment, with the sounds of life in the distance of people and music and things we know, is the good death–like falling asleep as a little girl while my parents continued to laugh and sing with dinner guests in the nearby dining room.

 

Herman died last night. I know. 

I had not buried Twinky as planned due to weather so today I put Herman with Twinky in a soft bed and buried them entwined together. Herman started leaving yesterday even though his cold was okay he just was fading. His hind end was worse than arrival and his eyes had sunk backwards-another sign (for me anyway) of the transition. 

I held him a lot yesterday and told him he was safe. I checked on him again at bed and he was sound asleep but his little paws were stretching in the final movements of a body with an already released soul. Maybe he watched Twinky just days ago and felt sure he could do this too. This morning he was just where I left him. I think Herman was really, really old and I think he just knew he could let go. How much longer would he have lived in the shelter? I don’t know, but I do believe some animals once out of the shelter can relax and let go if it is their time. It was Herman’s time. 

There have been many losses one right after the other but...it is what I attract-due to my intention. My intention is to shelter the souls that need help in the end, just to feel safe and warm...creating a space for them to let go, if and when they are ready.

 Last night we watched some James Bond movie. I lost interest and was tired. When I went to say goodnight to Mister Mosely, I knew he was not going to make it much longer. I don't know if it is days or weeks but doubt it is months. We were encouraged when the jaundice went away, but we also know he either has cancer or a tumor or something, but we will never know for sure-we will not put him through a specialist, and my vet said even if we wanted too Mose is not up to surgery. He is becoming more letharci and sleeps most of the time. There are other signs. But last night, I talked to him and told him he could go. It took me awhile to say it as I've care talked him so much in the past month. I've had time to adjust to the reality. And when you caretake anything or one, and you see their true self decline, it is part of the process of letting go as the caretaker. As long as he is comfortable, he can continue to sleep and be in transition. More than anyone, I hope he dies in his sleep, in his little cubby. 

I got into bed and let myself cry, and then sob. I had not done that for awhile. Martyn came in and thought I was having a bad dream. But I told him amidst my soft blubbering that it was just everything, Herman, Mosely, all of them, the pandemic, the election...it was all too much.

But up with the sun we were. And I cared for the bodies of Herman and Twinky. It was a beautiful, but a brooding sky...much like the personality of the current America we live in-there was change in the air, but there was fear, and trepidation and anger...but also some light behind and beside the darkest sky clouds. I watched cloud after cloud roll and form and merge into one another.

If you aren't afraid of where you came from then fear not where you go after death

Muddy yesterday morning

I've written about a friend who was diagnosed with ALS, a very cruel disease. She shared a thought she had read by Parker Palmer about dying, from his book On the Brink of Everything. He didn't fear where he came from before he was born born so he realized he should not have fear where he was going after he died.

I thought this was a very wise statement and made much sense to me. It also resonates with me because it shows the continuum of life-but that life is entwined with a million deaths and rebirths. We are constantly dying–our skin, our hair, teeth and bones....we walk around living but are dying passively. The flowers in the garden are alive now but are on the path of death. If we can see death as a partner in life -for me, it helps.

But goodbyes as a human are hard.

We ran to the vet on Friday for more pain meds for Muddy who has been diagnosed with terminal bone cancer at the age of 10.5. So we have been ruminating on how many more days is the right number of days for him. We are of course hanging on to each day, but it is exhausting carrying the power around of being the one that holds his final number of days in my hands.

I've done this long enough to know that things can seem manageable in pain and pallitive care one day and then the next day they aren't–and that creates a rushed, less peaceful end for both human and animal. There is nothing we are doing that is treating the cancer we are simply hoping for painless days. But on Friday he showed signs of more pain, and we added another pain pill into the mix. It seemed to help a lot.

But we are still left with the duty of asking, and answering how many days? What is one more week for him–is one more week for him as important to him as it is to us?

And so...I thought of this statement that my friend shared. She too is facing an earlier death than she had imagined due to the ALS. But if I don't fear where Muddy was before his birth, I won't fear where he is going.

Muddy and Bear yesterday

One doesn't fear the seasons, don't fear death

Luna one of the elder llamas

I think a lot about death, not in a morbid way, but in a curious way. I have said it many times, I am not afraid of death. In fact the last thing I want is to live too long. I always felt like 78 to 82 is a good time. I know, it's not my place to pick the number, but if you gave me the choice of living until 85, in assisted living or unable to be with the animals or Martyn, or dying at 78 on the farm, I'd take the latter.

I think because I have been so entwined with Nature much of my life I have looked at death like you might look at a season. Most people don't dread seasons, but many dread death.

I have a friend who is in her early seventies and was diagnosed with ALS last year. It stinks. To see her lose her ability to use her arms, drive, have strength to do simple things like pick up a book on the floor-it is hard to know she is going through it. But she is stoic and practical and a hero in my eyes the way she is dealing with it. I think when one is confronted with something like that-a disease or illness that is going to pretty much be the way you will die-it is different. In some ways, knowing how you are going to die could be a liberating thing. Dying when you are not ready, to me, is like being at a great family party, and you're just not ready to go and you are enjoying the company and you want to see how the party plays out, you don't want to miss one song or toast.

So when I say I'm not afraid of death, I am aware there are many things that are worse than death, like suffering, like pain, like abandonment at an old age, like losing total independence, like losing your mind...like falling on a hike and being lost for weeks and not being found-what are those last days like?

I think of death as an experience. And a surprise really. I imagine, or I often ponder this, that if you are aware you are in your last moments, it must be really a surreal experience. I wish we could know what people are thinking at that moment. When you are born, someone is there to catch you, hold you-you are not alone. You are not alone in the womb either. But when you die, chances are you can't communicate what is happening, you are alone with your thoughts.

The latter is interesting. As someone who writes and shares story and feelings, knowing I won't be able to share the last moments in a story seems challenging and isolating. On the other hand, I was thinking that because you are alone in your thoughts when you die, it must also be a beautiful gift to the self.

People talk of a good death. A good death is important to me as I care take my animals. I always strive for it, or yearn for it, and I'm always questioning if an animal needs to be helped on, or not. A good death is not always a perfect death. We are presented with things in life that might effect our death. But a good death I think must include awareness that is an experience of the self and soul.

It is something nobody can take from you-your own individual death.

When I watch Luna get older and older, she arrive here old and is now 22 or so, I want her to have a good death. I think Aldo had a good death, up on his hill. I hope for this for Luna. I don't tell her this, but I look in her eyes more of late and tell her that way, that I'm here and I will properly care for her body. To die under the old apple tree, that would be a good death for her. And it will be her experience.

Is this my best work to date?

Yesterday Opie and I ventured over to Cove's Edge to take the Love Mobile for a spin around the complex. This was our second voyage and it was received as happily as the first. I am getting to know faces and some names and people are getting to know Opie and talk about him. Now when they see the Love Mobile they know what is coming. I am also so happy it allows us to visit those that are bed ridden.

Last night I was sitting by the fire reviewing my day - Martyn came with me which was nice too-and I had a flash thought go through my head: I think this is the best work I've done so far. I feel like my elder work with animals is so rewarding and important-and so me-but adding in my work with sharing animals with the elder people on a consistent basis is important work. I feel like I'm just beginning to touch on things that I've been preparing for for years.

There are so many stories within those walls. I like talking to the people. This visit I met a sweet woman who recently retired and has Parkinson's now. She had been a nurse and caregiver her entire life, and told me how she had cared for a gentlemen who had Parkinson's, long before she had it. She took extra care for him, and he knew it, and in his ending days he told her how her care had meant more than any other and how much it meant to him. And now here she was, being cared for the same cruel disease. My Uncle had it, and it is cruel.

But Opie also provides us with a way to share stories about animals, which leads the elders to talk about dogs they had or goats they raised. We also met a blind woman, who became blind from cancer treatments, and she smiled and smiled when we rolled Opie up so she could feel him.

I try to empathize what this would be like-to be sitting in a residence without animals, remembering my donkeys, horse, goats, and more...perhaps even my husband...would I survive that? We all would like to live out our days at home, like my mother did, mobile, free to drive, cook, and do things we are used to doing. But it doesn't always come in script form like that. While I don't dwell on it, in this work one is confronted every day with the fact that life is fragile and often unfair, and often daunting. There is a song that I heard recently-I forgot by whom, it goes–"Sooner or later one of us is going to have to live without the other." Many of these people have lost mates, or their mate lives in their home and they visit - sometimes daily. I hope I don't have to do this, or Martyn.

I don't dwell on this, but I definitely am aware that each day is a gift. I have so many freedoms. I have carved out a life, it took years to get here, but I carved it out for myself and I am intensely living it every day.

I'm not afraid of death. But I am afraid - if I dwell on it-to be kept alive in a building no matter how nice, without my animals, or my ability to make my decisions on the simplest of things like, "Think I'll get up and make a scrambled egg."

I hope Nature will grant me that wish, to live my life out with Nature around me. I have thought about this, NAture might be saying,

"Well, okay, we grant you that wish, but it might mean you will die sooner than you had in mind from a disease or accident." I guess...that would be okay.