I believe it's important to acknowledge death and to use real language around it. This post may be difficult to read. I hope you read it anyway.
The first death I remember processing in much depth was my grandma’s—she was my mom’s mom. She died at age 83, when I was 16. Her passing meant no more letters, which we exchanged a few times a year, and no more terse messages left for my mom on our answering machine.
“Claire? It’s your mother. Goodbye.”
Even 30 years after her death, this still makes me smile.
Because she lived in Ohio, and we lived in Washington State, her passing was relatively easy to reconcile. She was an old lady, and due to the distance, we weren’t particularly close. My mom’s grief was much harder to witness than my own.
It was different when my puppy, Rio, died.
Rio was a gift from my mom when I graduated from college. We brought her home at eight weeks and I, of course, adored her. At the time, I was married, and my husband and I were building a home in Whatcom County. I worked in marketing for the local hospital, and he stayed with Rio and worked on the house. She was typically off leash because she tended to stay close, watching him work and stealing scraps of wood to chew on.
One morning, she saw our neighbor, Orien, walking up the hill. Rio would often accompany Orien on his daily walk up the hill and down again. So she ran to meet him, likely expecting he’d take her walking.
Rio presumably didn’t see that our other neighbor was heading down the hill in her large van, which ran over her as she started across the road. My husband tried to save her, but Rio died quickly.
After she died, he left a panicked message on my work voicemail, which I received when I returned to my desk following a meeting.
“Uh, Minda! It’s Rio. She’s dead. She died! Oh God, nooo. Rio! She’s dead, Minda. You have to come. You have to come home! Rio is dead!”
I called him back and told him he should take her to the vet so they could help her. I truly couldn’t understand why he was calling me instead of taking her to the vet. I couldn’t see that the shock of what he’d said was too much for me to process. I was in denial.
“You don’t understand, Minda. She’s dead.”
A co-worker overheard our conversation and offered to drive me home.
As soon as I saw her, I understood. Not only did she have apparent injuries, but Rio was gone. Her curious, enthusiastic, loyal little self was absent from the body that lay before me. There was no spirit animating her. No light in her eyes. That was the moment I accepted what happened: Rio had died.
This was an important experience for me, because it prepared me for my first encounter with a dead human.
I was just a baby chaplain (I am still a baby chaplain), working a night shift for the first time. I received a call to support two siblings through the death of their mother, but had no indication otherwise of the circumstances.
Given I was brand new, I was still trying to find my way around the maze of buildings, but when I saw her from the hallway, I knew I was in the right place. A priest stood to the side, reciting a prayer. The woman’s children—a daughter and a son—were on either side of her bed.
It was overwhelming to see her; I felt both drawn in and a little scared. I didn’t want to encroach on their privacy, yet knew they had requested a chaplain, and I was the only one around. Still well outside of the room, I took a moment to take in the scene and collect myself.
The patient was extremely thin, bald, and as pale as the sheet that covered her. Her mouth was open wide, as if in a gasp or yawn. She was missing most of her teeth.
I didn’t know then that when someone dies, their jaw muscles relax, and their mouth will often open naturally. It is also common for a patient’s eyes to open, and she was no exception—she seemed to be gazing skyward.
The sight of her was jarring, yet beautiful. Despite her unfortunate condition, she looked supremely serene.
I made my way into the room and introduced myself. The priest finished his prayers and departed. Within moments, her family began to open up about the patient’s extraordinary story, and how mental illness had removed her from their lives. They thought she had died many years before, when the kids were still kids.
Imagine their shock when they received a call at their respective homes in California from a super-sleuthing social worker in Seattle. He told them he was pretty sure the patient he was calling about was their mom, and that she was alive but in considerably poor health. The two of them hopped on a plane and made their way to her bedside. The three of them spent most of a week together before the patient died that evening, peacefully and as comfortable as possible, with her much beloved children at her side.
In the interest of confidentiality, I can’t tell the whole story of this family…it’s not mine to tell, anyway. Suffice to say there were a number of elements that made it all the more remarkable, and I will never forget that woman, or her children.
The most lasting lesson? That death is not the worst thing. The woman who died that evening had an exceedingly difficult life—hell on earth, one might say. How extraordinary that after years of longing, suffering, and struggle, she got to be reunited with the children she loved more than anything.
I couldn’t imagine a happier ending.