Last week I said goodbye to my older sister, Janie. On Thursday, April 5, at 47 years old, Jane suffered a stroke. Seven hours after getting “the call,” from my youngest sister, Jeana, I was sitting bedside at the Good Samaritan Hospital on Long Island, next to my big sis’s lifeless body. I took turns with my parents and my two younger sisters, holding Jane’s hand while she clung to every breath pumped into her by a respirator. Clinically, Jane is still alive, although all that is left of her is the outer shell. Jane’s being kept alive with tubes, drugs, drips and feedings through her nose and mouth. Her hands are tied down so she can’t rip the tubes out of her mouth. This is not what Jane wanted. As of Monday, Greg took an honorable, unselfish action and signed a “do not resuscitate” order. Now, this is what she wanted. I know that we all die a bit every day. That is a truth none of us can deny. But for 44 years, since Janie was 3, she was my big sister. And we lived every day, not died. Whether it was playing talent, scout singing our hearts out in front of the mirror, or playing school with Peggy and Sue, or playing Barbies or softball, we lived. Eventually we grew up, and we traded in childhood pastimes for occasional great times together. Sharing a bottle of Merlot or taking a road trip to visit our parents, hanging out on her sun kissed deck, or meeting for lunch at Applebee’s, we lived. We only started dying last Friday. My first memory of Janie is one that people say I imagine, but I really don’t think so. You see, I’m lying on my back, and I think I’m in my bassinet and I see this forehead, eyebrows, eyes and nose peer over the white ruffled edge. I remember a woman yelling and the whole world tipping. My mom told me once when I described this to her that Jane had almost knocked my bassinet over shortly after I was born and had been brought home from the hospital. Mom said Jane wouldn’t leave my side and couldn’t stop looking at me. My last memory of Jane is me peering down at her this time, while she lay in bed. Instead of white ruffles, she’s surrounded by crisp white hospital sheets. This time I can’t stop looking at her. Once again, she has tipped my whole world over. Janie is my number one fan, my rescuer, my mentor, my angel in waiting, my soul sister. I would only have to think something and she would call me up to answer me. I’d get angry and she’d do the yelling. I’d cry and she would heal me with a soft word, a hug, a silly story or memory. She was fierce and tough against anyone who hurt me, as a child and even now, as an adult. I have so many memories of Janie it would take the whole paper to fill them, so unfortunately I have to keep them to myself at this time. The life lessons she taught me were as plentiful. Those, too, I’ll save for another time. The life lessons I’ve learned with Jane’s illness and imminent death need to be addressed before another day slips by wasted. Every one of us is going to die eventually. That I can handle. Death doesn’t have to be a sad, horrible experience. The way people handle death is all wrong. We dread it, fear it, mask it as something gruesome and horrifying, but really, what is death but a part of life? If more people lived kinder lives and treated each other better, I think that death would not be such a sad occasion. In reality, the struggle with a loved one’s death often focuses not on the dying person’s comfort or future, but on the future and comfort of those left behind. All the tears shed over the years, the unkind words, recollections, unfinished plans – these are the real reasons we weep and mourn the loss of life. So if we lived our lives prepared for death, not looking forward to it, just at the very least in a way that we would have little regrets when the time comes, then it wouldn’t be such a tough thing to face. Think of it. If you kept in touch with your friends and family regularly; if you left them with a kind word every time you saw them or spoke with them; if you helped them when they needed help, not just when it was convenient for you, there would be no regrets if they suddenly were taken from you. I was very fortunate to have a great relationship with Janie; she is part of my soul. But even so, I have regrets. I should have talked with her more. I should have made it a point to see her more. You name it, I should have done it. There were not enough hugs, not enough laughter, not enough shared bottles of merlot, not enough road trips or pit stops at Cracker Barrel. There were not enough photographs taken or songs sung, not enough holidays shared, not enough poems written for her. Too many regrets. The second life lesson I’ve learned is that we need to be more responsible for our bodies, for what happens to us in situations like Janie’s and when we die. It’s just too much of a burden to place on our loved ones who have a hard enough time coping with their loss. If you don’t want to lay in a hospital bed existing only with life support, you need to make that clear before you are put in this position and unable to communicate. If you want your organs donated, you need to let someone know. If you want to be cremated, or don’t want a full blown memorial service, make your desires known. Having legal documents drawn up would be ideal, but not everyone can afford the legal fee for this service. So tell someone, write it down, have it notarized. Don’t leave it to chance or the memories of your loved ones. In Janie’s case, most of us are of the same thought. My dad and stepmom and myself knew when we saw her that the person lying in that bed was not and would never ever be the Janie we loved and knew. It’s a bit harder for our birth mother and my two younger sisters. Every twitch of Jane’s leg, every squeeze of her hand gave them hope that she was going to fully recover. As her body deteriorated and shut down slowly over the next week, they kept recanting stories they had heard from people who knew someone who had just as severe brain damage, whose kidneys had stopped functioning, who could not breathe on her own that made a 100 percent recovery. But Jane’s brain damage is too extensive. And the hope for any sort of recovery the doctor said would be “false hope.” This weekend, I found a card and letter she wrote me not too long ago. It’s wording is timely, almost as if she just sent it to me. We always talked of growing old together, being the crazy old aunts, living together. And again, she referenced this plan in her letter. “One of these years, you and I will be sitting on the porch swing at 70 planning our TV shows for the night. You might have to tie me into a wheel chair and feed me oatmeal. Not! Just...wheel me to Denny’s once a week.” It’s sad that those memories will never be made. But this is life, ever changing, constantly spiralling, filled with beginnings and endings. So get your details in order. Call your family – especially those you’ve drifted away from. Hug, dance, laugh, love. Send mushy cards and crazy letters. That may be all they have left of you one day. Don’t wait until you’re sitting bedside, wishing for one more day, knowing that day will never come. This is life. Live it.
|