When Death Comes

By Diane Rae Davis

To my friends in The Abbey and elsewhere, I would like to share a few thoughts about death.  Like the poem “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver, “I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?” What follows is a kind of note to self, checking in on where my curiosity has taken me so far.

The question I am primarily addressing is: what is it like on the journey to the door of death, before I step through to the darkness?  And will I still be capable of curiosity and wonder as I get closer? Will I still be able to love?

There is a book that I find extremely helpful in describing each step most of us will take along the inevitable path toward death: The Art of Dying Well by Katy Butler.  In it, she details the health stages we will most likely traverse “as time grows finite.”  Beginning with the first real shock of understanding that death indeed applies to us and ending with a chapter on what it can look like to be supported in active dying, Butler offers practical advice throughout the book on how to keep your life as functional and joyful as possible.  The behavioral descriptions at the beginning of each chapter make it easy to spot what stage you are currently in. I have lived long enough (85 at this writing) to find myself in the Facing Mortality chapter, where the doctors have used terms like chronic, late stage, advanced (when they mean approaching the end of life).

Avoiding the “worst of fast medicine when it can’t serve you” is a critical piece of the book and has been a major theme in my life for the past several years.  I have one chronic and progressive illness that will kill me if I live long enough, and several other “conditions” that range from semi-serious to merely irritating (like certain allergies from living in Austin, TX).  I have good health insurance and have utilized plenty of what modern medicine has to offer – including 5-6 specialists at a time for my various maladies.  This kept me on a treadmill of doctors’ appointments, medical interventions, hospitalizations (one for a botched procedure) and daily medication (each pill with its own side effect).  As my prognosis shortened, my pulmonologist finally referred me to Palliative Care Austin.  It was the kindest thing she could do for me, and I actually wept with relief after experiencing my first 1 1/2 hour appointment with my very own nurse practitioner in the comfort of my own kitchen.  She had the time for me.  I was seen as a whole person, not a dissection of specific ailments.  In this more gentle context, I could begin to make decisions about what medical resources would truly serve me, instead of giving in to the medical establishment’s focus on relentless treatment interventions and my own fears.  A whole new more spacious plateau opened up, and that’s where I live now.

My questions are different in this space.  I have room to explore spiritual resources in a new way. I tend to evaluate what I’m reading or what I’m experiencing by the question: is this helpful for nurturing the wonder? I have read certain Buddhist books over and over because they teach me how to practice wonder in the most difficult of circumstances (for example, Larry Rosenberg’s Living in the Light of Death). Meditation is a daily practice that I have learned to love.  Focusing on my breathing even when it is cut short by disease is a bittersweet experience but at the same time my breath feels like home.

There are certain poems that nudge me into a more spacious view of what’s happening, like Anna Akhmatova’s Everything is Plundered or Izumi Shikibu’s Although the Wind….

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.

When I think about stepping through the door to death, I remind myself I will be alone in the same way I was alone during the birth of my first child when I suddenly realized no one was going to rescue me from the job of giving birth.  Terrifying, but with moonlight (a baby boy).  Today, no one is going to rescue me from the job of dying. But in the moonlight, I can see that I am not alone at all.  I am joining with millions of other beings at the same place on the same path where so many have gone before, participating with other sentient beings in the constant hum of birth and death.

There are a few legal “rescues” from the long suffering of some kinds of death, such as death by COPD, ALS, late-stage cancers, etc.  I am in the COPD category, and I have contemplated taking an early exit that promises relief from the certain terror of not being able to utilize enough oxygen (even if it is provided). Medical aid in dying legislation exists in several states where I could likely qualify if I pulled up stakes and established residence in one of them.  I was amazed to find that the practice of VSED (Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking) is legal in every state (including Texas!) and is an option supported by palliative/hospice care in many.  Hospice Austin is experienced in the VSED process and willing to support it if the patient initiates it.

I am relieved to have VSED as an option, but like some who live in medical aid in dying states and have gone through the process of qualifying and have even received the fatal dose of medication, I may never use it.  There is something about “seeing it through” that I want to honor. For much of my life, I have tried to change the circumstances I found myself in, to soften the harsh corners of my life.  In my old age,  I am aware of a desire to meet what comes when it comes and even learn to welcome it.  But then, I ask myself, is that just a romantic notion? Is there any real chance for me to  experience curiosity or wonder or even love when the path to death becomes so hard to bear? I can also see that it takes courage to call a halt to the suffering and do what it takes to embrace death. I am trusting I will know what to do when the time comes.

My thoughts on what arises after death continue to evolve.  I am fascinated to learn about the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on the bardo (that liminal space between death and rebirth), but tend to put these ideas in the same category as purgatory and other intricate descriptions of heaven and hell, places we will never know while living but make for good contemplation.   For myself, I am partial to a piece in The Marginalian by Maria Popova that asserts we are borrowed stardust, “bound to be returned to the universe that made it.” Quoting from the poet-physicist Alan Lightman, in Mr. g: A Novel About the Creation,  Mr. g describes his heroine who has just died as made up of “63.7% oxygen, 21.0% carbon, 10.1% hydrogen, 2.6% nitrogen, 1.4% calcium, 1.1% phosphorous, plus a smattering of 90-odd other chemical elements created in stars.” At cremation, he says, most of her atoms floated skyward, and slowly diffused through the atmosphere, where at 60 days they could be found in every handful of air on the planet!  Some were breathed in by human beings and plants and became incorporated into organs and bone and, I suspect, zinnias.   And so it goes in a most glorious vision of eternal life.

As I trudge the happy (more or less, so far) trail toward my death, the biggest unexpected consolation is the deep friendship that has developed over the last five years with a few women, and the sangha of people I count on from The Abbey to the Austin Shambhala Center on regular zoom calls and occasional get-togethers in person.  It is here I find acceptance, love, and a wonder at how different people experience life itself. Developing new friends is an unexpected gift.  I have lived long enough that all but one of my old friends and all of my family of origin have died.   Before this late-blooming burst of friendship I had begun to see myself as essentially on my own, making my way through the rest of my life supported by my own perseverance, a connection to my sons and their families, books, and my cat, Circe.   Now, in old age, I am once again experiencing the joy of tender sharing with other people.

Which is why I wrote this piece.  It’s an offering of my thoughts as I get closer to when death comes.  Wouldn’t it be a wonder if other people reading this chimed in with their own thoughts? What do you think happens on the road to death’s door? What supports you on the road? What happens to you after you die?

A deep bow to each one of you along the way.