Life, Death and Politics: A Memoir of Courage

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[Back at home,] I am at the computer when the phone rings with a new health aide, Jordan Hammond. He's waiting outside and wondering if he should come in. I race down the stairs and greet him at the door and, to my surprise, blurt out, "He's not doing too well. I think he might be dead." The words tumble out, words I didn't intend to say, words that give voice to a thought that I have pushed from my mind all morning. How could he be dead? Hospice just delivered a new supply of drugs, including the giant bottle of Robitussin that in my mind had come to represent weeks more of life.

With me hovering a few feet away, Jordan takes but a moment to render his verdict. "Yes, indeed he is. He's already cold."

As I field phone calls and deal with letting people know, Tom lies peacefully in the living room. A friend, Bob Baggstrom, who had helped care for Tom these last months, arrives. He stands respectfully by the bedside for several minutes. A military man and a practicing Catholic, he tells me that he had performed last rites on Tom some time ago.

I start to talk to him as I move around the house. "Tom, where did I put my Diet Coke?" It is a question I often posed and it had become a running joke between us. He looks so much like he has these last weeks that I keep expecting him to move, but he's frozen still. I don't want him covered with the sheet yet, consigned to anonymity. I am not the least bit bothered that I have a dead body in my living room. This is Tom, and it doesn't feel all that different from the months of illness as he lay in that bed.

When the undertaker arrives, he brings a stretcher and a caramel-colored plastic body bag. He enlists our friend Bob to help lift Tom from the hospital bed onto the gurney and into the body bag. Tom is tall and his head cracks against the metal at one end of the gurney. The undertaker doesn't change expression, but I know that isn't something he wanted to happen. He begins to zip the bag closed and asks if I want to close the part over Tom's face. I say yes. I lean over and kiss Tom for the last time, and then pull the zipper shut. His lips don't feel all that different—a little cool, but not unlike the winter nights when we turned the heat down in the house and crawled under the blankets. Our long fight has come to an end.

March 31, 2005
The outpouring to Tom's death is overwhelming. I've got more than a dozen floral arrangements and fruit baskets in the living room plus two huge deli platters, enough to fortify a stream of mourners should I decide to hold a three-day wake. The truth is I don't know what to do. I don't have much experience with the rituals of dying. All I know is the living room looks terribly empty without the hospital bed, and the reality of what I've lost is beginning to sink in.

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No, snarkopolitan, that's not the source of my "harshness," as you call it. I held my father's hand as he died of colon cancer at home, in his own bed. I found my mother dead of a heart attack. I have lost many other family members whom I have mourned deeply. I have also mourned many patients over the years, and am still in touch with many of their families, years after the death of their loved one.

After my father died, I couldn't believe that life went on, that the sun came up, that other people were going about their business when my father was dead. How could they not see that the most important person in the world (to me) was dead? Why were the flags not at half-mast, why were others not crying?

I have attended literally thousands of patients in my career, and, as I noted below, worked in ICU, Hospice, and oncology, where patient acuity is high and deaths are frequent. I have also led grief support groups. (So much for "the tiny amount [I] know.")

I read Ms. Clift's article several times, as one who has experienced loss and from a professional perspective. And my assessment of her behavior is the same. Having seen and experienced as much grief as I have over mant years, I can honestly say that I have never seen a reaction like hers.

I feel sorry for her because one day she will die and may be abandoned in her last moments as her husband was. I'm sorry for her because she will regret her behavior. And because she is such an unfeeling person.

I am sorry for your loss. Your pain is evident in your posts, in their confusion and anger. It's understandable, given that your loss is so fresh. And people often take their disbelief and anger and pain on others, because they can't take it out on the loved one who is lost. That's OK. You need to get rid of it somehow.

You had the guts to be with your father when he died, in an alien environment, surrounded by strangers, instead of sleeping comfortably in your bed at home or simply refusing to be with him because it was too painful for you. That is one of the most difficult acts one will ever do in life. Ms, Clift, is known for her "toughness," yet she fled death when it came to her husband, letting others assume her duties as a spouse. Tough? I think not. Compassionate? No. Cowardly? Yes.

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Posted By: M. Smith @ 04/01/2008 9:04:33 AM

Which woman?
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Posted By: Toni Kamau @ 04/01/2008 6:30:56 AM

Sorry, forgive me, but this woman is a monster in my eyes.
Is such a behavior normal in the USA?
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Posted By: M. Smith @ 03/31/2008 1:06:45 PM

No, snarkopolitan, that's not the source of my "harshness," as you call it. I held my father's hand as he died of colon cancer at home, in his own bed. I found my mother dead of a heart attack. I have lost many other family members whom I have mourned deeply. I have also mourned many patients over the years, and am still in touch with many of their families, years after the death of their loved one.

After my father died, I couldn't believe that life went on, that the sun came up, that other people were going about their business when my father was dead. How could they not see that the most important person in the world (to me) was dead? Why were the flags not at half-mast, why were others not crying?

I have attended literally thousands of patients in my career, and, as I noted below, worked in ICU, Hospice, and oncology, where patient acuity is high and deaths are frequent. I have also led grief support groups. (So much for "the tiny amount [I] know.")

I read Ms. Clift's article several times, as one who has experienced loss and from a professional perspective. And my assessment of her behavior is the same. Having seen and experienced as much grief as I have over mant years, I can honestly say that I have never seen a reaction like hers.

I feel sorry for her because one day she will die and may be abandoned in her last moments as her husband was. I'm sorry for her because she will regret her behavior. And because she is such an unfeeling person.

I am sorry for your loss. Your pain is evident in your posts, in their confusion and anger. It's understandable, given that your loss is so fresh. And people often take their disbelief and anger and pain on others, because they can't take it out on the loved one who is lost. That's OK. You need to get rid of it somehow.

You had the guts to be with your father when he died, in an alien environment, surrounded by strangers, instead of sleeping comfortably in your bed at home or simply refusing to be with him because it was too painful for you. That is one of the most difficult acts one will ever do in life. Ms, Clift, is known for her "toughness," yet she fled death when it came to her husband, letting others assume her duties as a spouse. Tough? I think not. Compassionate? No. Cowardly? Yes.