We recently have lost two more of our longest family members at Golden Hearth. Doris had been with us since 1999 and Dorothy since 2002. They had become our family and we fell blessed that we had the opportunity to provide them with our love and care. I wanted to share a journal of one of our employee's, Colleen. Her thoughts are incredibly well spoken and give insight to the journey of life.
It has been a considerably difficult weekend. Dorothy passed away yesterday and on the heels of Doris' death last week it seems my crew has been dealt a considerable blow of loss. We can usually process our clients passings and remain professional for our other clients, but four deaths in four months (especially of some of our most cherished and long standing clients) has thrown us all for a loop. Priscilla is a wreck. We all are. Dorothy was more than a special resident, she was like a mother/grandmother figure to us all. Whereas most of PK's other clients have a dependent relationship with her (she is RN: they are client) Dorothy and her shared a bond that was mutually beneficial. They loved and supported one another dearly and truly became family over the past 6 years. My heart aches when I think of Jimmy, Dorothy's developmentally delayed son that she single handedly raised after her husband died tragically in a plane crash forty years ago. It was just her and Jim for so long. I just don't know if he will conceptualize what has occurred to his momma. It breaks my heart to think of him trying to handle the grieving experience, a true challenge even for those of us with fully functional brains. Now a man who hold the same emotional capacity of love as we do, will have to try and deal with death without the ability to cognitively process it.
If this job has given me any true gift it has been the opportunity to meet people in their humblest moments. To have a chance to study each breath and eye lid flutter and temp change as not only the biological shut down of a physical being, but the spiritual releasing of a soul who has completed a journey here. It is not an experience I really can describe in words. Each death is unique, yet oddly similar in many aspects. There is a raw pattern to it all. Now, after also witnessing birth; with the primal cues that instinctually guide every mother, an infants rapid adjustment to life out of the womb, a woman's hormonal shift to immediately supply milk with a perfect combination of protective antibodies and balanced caloric intake for her child, there really is no other word but miraculous for these things. I think however, that exiting this world, with all of its significant and subtle details is no less of a miracle than the entering. The hardest part on this end of it I think is acceptance.
It is haunting to watch someone take a last breath and accept the finality of it all. We breath what, virtually billions of times a lifetime with absolutely no thought to it. Then suddenly its the end and the breathing is all there is. Every breath counts, is scrutinized, holds the hope and emotion of loved ones on each struggled inhale. Each breath buys those loved ones time, seconds to delay the inevitable, to forgo the devastation everyone knows is only moments away. And suddenly there are just no more breaths. There in front of you is the person whom you have always known, they look asleep. It seems reasonable to reach out and tap them, to shake them out of their slumber as you could have done to them yesterday or any of their thousands of prior days. But now even as a body sits in front of you, the essence of that person has truly vanished. It is immediately evident. The vitality of the spirit, the energy of conduction, just the fullness of life, it all expires as that final breath is drawn.
And in the midst of that shock, the sadness and unbelievability of it all, there is a awkward peacefulness. There is a sense of something so much bigger than any of us can imagine. The humble sensation of what that soul who has just left you might now be gaining. All the secrets of the universe, the flooding discovery of what none of us will learn until that very moment. All of this knowledge separated by just a few simple breaths. Each of us will lay there one day, pulling in our final moment on this planet. This is the one commonality we all share and yet not one of us can advise anyone else on the process. All that each of us will have in that moment will be ourself, and the fears or hopes we have spent a lifetime creating about what comes next. Death beckons the most powerful questions of life and solidifies the deepest beliefs. I know that I will see these people again. Fear and sadness arise only when I know I must complete my own life journey before I do. I challenge any atheist to see what I have seen and remain unmoved. There is not one moment of birth or death that is not precisely intricate and masterfully designed. There can just be no other way of feeling once you have been there.
I feel deep honor for the clients who have allowed my presence at their death bed. To Doris and Dorothy, and the many others who went before you I say thanks. Whether you were even aware of me at the end or not, each of your passages have given me a renewed gratitude for the gift of life. Death is like a reset for those of us who remain living, and an opportunity for even just that moment to be humble and joyful about the opportunity to still be here, surrounded by life and love.
Thank you, Colleen, for being able to express in words what can be so challenging to describe.
Keep Healthy and please by kind to our residents and stay home if you are feeling under the weather.
