Saying Good-bye

Right after I clicked “publish” for my last post, I received a call from my friend. Her mother, who is my friend as well(I wrote about her recently)is dying. She is now in hospice and their goal is to keep her comfortable until she dies. The day’s get long and hard when one sits alone with their mother or wife, watching her slip away, more and more each day. So instead of digging my hands into the mess down in the dungeon, I went to be with my friends.

As hard as it is to watch someone suffer, or die, or whatever else someone is experiencing, there is no place that I would rather be then along side them. To just sit, to look into eye’s and speak love with them, to give kisses, hugs and love, to whisper words of support and to just “be” with her and them.

There really is nothing one can say or do to take the pain and suffering associated with watching a loved one die, away from them. She is the love of his life and he is watching her leave. She is her mother, her best friend and she can’t hang onto her anymore.

I have watched this woman live fully and wonderfully and as I participate in the ending of this wonderful life, I am forced to pay attention to my own mortality and that of my own loved ones.

Now that she is drinking and eating very little, her body is shutting down more and more. Her body is doing all the things one does when it’s the end.

When I was sitting with her in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how we were in this building in which the coming and going of life was either celebrated or grieved. It was very likely that a new life was making it’s entrance into this world at that moment, while another was leaving it. How loved one’s were excitedly gathered to welcome the new life into their lives, while in another section of the hospital, other loved one’s gathered to comfort while their loved one made their exit. First breathes. Last breathes. Joy over new life and sadness that it is over.

She asks God to take her. Because we love her and hate seeing her suffer, we too pray for God to take her. Still, she has hung on and we speculated that it may be because she is waiting for her other children to get here from out of state. When she was told that they were coming her face lit up and she smiled and even laughed. They arrived last night.

This whole letting go and saying goodbye is a painful one. Wanting to hang on to this woman that brought you life or shared life with you and yet knowing you have to let go because it’s their time to leave. Grieving because you can already see the parts of her that have left and knowing it won’t be long.

She will make her exit soon and we will mourn the loss of such a beautiful person. The beauty of her heart and the life she lived is evident in those who love her. She will be sadly missed yet we will joyfully celebrate the gift of her life and all that she was. She lived and loved fully and that is the legacy she leaves behind.

Please pray for my friends. That as they gather in her final hours that they will be drawn tightly together and that she will know it’s okay to leave. Pray that her suffering ends soon. And that the suffering of her family and friends that she leaves me behind, comes to an end. Her leaving will be bittersweet in that such a beautiful woman is no longer suffering. Thank you.

We did get quite a bit done in the dungeon yesterday and will work part of the day on it until we get the little’s back or get called away. Isn’t it something that things like this seem so very small in comparison to things of life and death or friends and family?

Do me a favor…hug those you love today…hold them close…tell them how you feel about them and back it up with action..heal a grudge you have with a loved one…smile and laugh…do something you enjoy…live today fully.

Until next time, hugs and love, Lori