As a loved one approaches death, what can we do?

By Mark Lombard
Clarion Herald

Early in the New Year, when thoughts turn to New Year’s resolutions and turning the page to a bright and wonderful future, I got word that my cousin’s wife, who had been battling a spreading cancer, was being directed away from chemotherapy and toward palliative care.

Cheryl has always been a positive force, looking for the silver lining in every situation, there for others and perennially hopeful. It was just in December that she, feeling stronger as her body seemed to respond well to treatment, would be out walking near their home in the Southwest desert.

She and her husband Ed and my wife Mary and I traveled together to Sicily just more than a year ago, and it was difficult to find her without a smile on her face, a hearty laugh coming from her throat.

So, it is, with that as a background, I have to admit days later still being completely unsettled with the news. Part of it has to do with shocking finality that appears to be the coming reality before Lent begins and certainly by the time we observe Good Friday this year – and the analogy is not lost on me.

What can anyone do?
The other element that has just left me shattered is the wondering of what I can do, what can anyone do, in the midst of such a living tragedy, of watching the moments tick away. What are we called to do when a loved one enters this interim time before death?

I remember holding my dad’s hand, kissing his forehead and speaking softly in his ear words of love when, two days after a massive heart attack, the medical team removed the tubes and wires as his life support minutes before he died. That might have been the most difficult situation I ever experienced because of the enormity of the loss in that moment. And, yet, because things moved so quickly, there was no time to dwell on what needed to be done, on how to be fully present.

I have known friends and family who have been through hospice care and seen how it allows the patient, family and friends to truly embrace those days, weeks, months left as a gift of time, however short it may be, to settle affairs, to say appropriate goodbyes and to focus on living each moment as fully as one is able.

A meal may not be the best
My thoughts turned to maybe sending along a meal, a dessert or a drink, as the breaking of bread or sitting at a table over food might conjure up memories of past good times. But then the realization settles in that many in hospice are faced with not only the imminent loss of all that they hold dear but also the loss of appetite, as the body’s metabolism changes, slows.

There is a helplessness associated with watching a loved one prepare for their own death. Despite our Catholic faith reminding us that death is not the end but the beginning of a new eternal life, many of us struggle to accept that we somehow can’t intervene to prevent the unpreventable. And, if not to “take that cup away,” then to ensure that the dying are kept upbeat through their last trial.

Yet, in watching friends and family who have struggled with illness culminating in death, there are as many ways to face it as there are people. I’ve seen people on their deathbed joyous, serene, at peace, encouraging, grateful or, yes, even angry. In my grandmother Anna, I saw a person teaching me a final lesson of life’s continuity and the hope that goes with that, as she, summoning all of the strength she had before dying a day later, lifted our month-old son, Matthew, the youngest Lombard great-grandchild born during her life, and proclaimed, “How beautiful he is,” and then enveloped him in a hug to last decades beyond her life.

Express your feelings
Another friend of mine, Michael, to whom I was not particularly close, demonstrated to me how dignity and the love of family was indeed more powerful than the life-eating nature of cancer that claimed him. Again, I was faced with what to do, and came up completely empty of any idea to deal with – in a meaningful way – what he was going through. After much soul-searching, I thought all I had to give of value while he faced death was the love and respect I felt for him, and that I could at least try to express that.

Letter writing is an art that we may have in many ways lost as a society. Maybe it is the ease of communicating by sending photos and videos with our hand-held devices, which certainly has its place. Maybe we are not sure we have anything of import to say or maybe it’s just that we are too busy.

But somehow, I decided to write the letter and share with him how I always had found him to be a gentleman, a positive person and a kind soul. I even admitted that I wish we had spent more time together. He died several months after I sent that letter.

His wife told me before he died and in the couple of years since that he cherished the letter and had it where he could see it, as it meant so much to him. It was not, I am sure, because of any eloquence on my part, but rather, I think, just because someone took the time to be present, to speak honestly about the past and his future.

In the end, the one gift we have, whether near or far, is presence. I’m going to write to Cheryl, as I told my cousin I would, which I hope will reach her before she dies, to speak of the giftedness of her life, of her presence, of the hope her life has always been about, of her love which remains.

Author’s postscript: Cheryl Dalton died on Friday, Jan. 26, at 3 p.m. , the same day of the week and the time coincidentally that the Gospels (Mt 27: 45-50, Lk 23.44-46) note Jesus died. Before losing consciousness and while in palliative care, her husband, Ed, read the letter that she was sent and was said to be touched. Mark Lombard is the business manager of the Clarion Herald.

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