Tag: Dying
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Feeling well while dying
Supposedly, I am dying. But right now I feel more alive than I have in years. Six hours of surgery on November 29 removed a brain tumor. My minor balancing issue that sent me to a hospital and into surgery is gone. I’ve gotten physical therapy I’m not sure I needed but certainly didn’t hurt.…
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Cane and able
So it turns out that permanent disability is the least of my problems. Death is my real problem. If you read me regularly, you’ll know that I had a brain tumor removed on November 29. The good: the surgeon removed the whole thing. The bad: it’s cancerous, and not the kind of cancer likely to…
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Goodbye Marie
Not everyone can say they’ve buried three mothers. Okay, technically I didn’t bury any of them except my real mom. As she was cremated, it meant handing a box of her ashes to a cemetery worker who put them underground. The second “mom” to go was my mother in law in 2012. That should have…
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When it comes to dying and coping with life, religion probably isn’t helping
I turned 65 recently. This makes me officially old, in that I’m now old enough for Medicare. The good news is that for the first time in my life I’m on socialized medicine. The bad news is, well, I’m 65. My mother died at 85, my father at 89. That’s pretty long as lives go,…
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The best in life is yet to be: an essay on healthy mortality
Another birthday has come and gone. Since this one did not end in a zero, it did not deserve particular attention. But since I am in my sixties now, most of my life is firmly in the past. I’ll be fortunate if only two-thirds of it is in my past. Aside from a nice dinner…
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Scared to death
Did you see the video of Donald Trump’s hair (or more accurately his lack of it)? It looks like on February 6th Trump had a really bad hair day. The camera caught these moments when he was ascending into Air Force One. Trump of course goes through great length to hide his thinning hair. While…
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Eulogy for my father
Grace: (in Christian belief) is the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. My sister Mary related an anecdote about my father, who passed away on Monday at age 89. Two days before his death, she had to return to Holy Cross Hospital in…
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Searching for the exit
Dad is lying on his bed, half human and half ghost. He is not as pale as he was during his last bout with pneumonia, but he certainly looks ghost-like. His companion machine with its steady pulse is squirting oxygen into his nostrils with each breath. Dad is wearing pants in bed, a linen shirt…
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Dying well
Dear old Dad is dying. It’s been an inference most of us have made based on his condition, which has been slowly but steadily worsening. Yesterday it became more explicit in his email to us. Dad’s left lung basically doesn’t work anymore. In his case it is due to a condition called pulmonary fibrosis. With…
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Deathwatch
My mother passed away ten years ago this November. Her decline and death and the vivid memories it brought back (many of which are cataloged here in my archives) were on my mind yesterday as our car, facing stiff headwinds scurried west on I-70. For we were on our way to say goodbye to another…
Occam's Razor 