My mother in law was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma on August 5, 2005. She was a force to be reckoned with. A smoker for over 30 years, she was the type of woman that was willing to carry the world on her shoulders. As a Home Economics teacher until her retirement in 2001, she was committed to bringing out the best in her students. She was a pragmatic woman who had very little use for things that could not be validated by scientific inquiry. Religion was suspect as was anyone who was not willing to sweat and bleed for a living. Stress was a common state in her life and it took a movement of heaven and earth for her to admit feeling any pain. She suffered a great deal the year and a half of her fight with cancer.
I felt a strong kinship with my mother in law. Primarily because like she, I worried too much about what others thought of me. I shared in her feelings of inadequacy and compensated by having a “work horse” type of ethic.
She once asked me “Dennis, do you think I am judgmental?” I said “Yes, I do. We all are.” I have to admit, I was afraid of being judged by her. She would have driven Julie from Julie and Julia crazy with her criticism of how to perfect deboning a chicken. I did not know how to wash the dishes correctly or set the table so I typically stayed clear away from the kitchen. My fascination with spirit was foreign to her so we did not speak about my extracurricular activities.
Christmas 2006 would go on the books as one of our greatest adventures. My wife was to be induced with our second child on December 22, 2006. My mother in law was determined to make a trip to Denver and meet her grand-daughter even with failing kidneys, round the clock transfusions and the threat of dialysis. If this prospect was not stressful enough, Denver had a blizzard the week prior and cancelled the flight she and my father in law were to be on. We were fortunate to live across the street from the fire department and I joked with my wife that we may need those good looking fireman to help me deliver. Fortunately the road was paved for us to be driven by our daughter’s angelic sitter to the hospital for the inducement on schedule. No sooner had we arrived home with our new daughter on Christmas Eve, than a new blizzard hit the area and cancelled the second flight my in laws were to be on. My mother in law then took a turn for the worse and was hospitalized for the last time.
Canada and the US had just passed a law requiring passports to travel to and from even for newborns. We made the decision to go to Canada and try to fulfill my mother in law’s last wish of seeing her second grand-daughter. With three feet of snow we headed to a post office and with my hand holding the head of our 5 day old child, we had a passport picture snapped and were on our way.
For two weeks prior to leaving for Canada, I was spending hours in our basement praying for my mother in law and for my wife. I was empathetic to the challenge they were experiencing and I welcomed joining them in this struggle through prayer.
At this point I have to say that I don’t normally spend hours in prayer for anybody. I have enjoyed mystical experiences throughout my life but am too lazy to have any consistent meditative discipline. So when I say, I was called to prayer, I truly mean I am given the energy and motivation from somewhere and I have no choice but to spend hours. I felt obsessed by the thought of helping my mother in law in some way deal with death, yet I was not willing to address this with her in the physical. I felt I could help. I just did not know how, but to pray.
The trip to Canada was not uneventful. We did not know how long my mother in law would be conscious and the doctors believed she had days not weeks to live. There was a huge line through immigration but that did not matter. A customs officer saw us with a newborn and flagged us to the front of the line. We ran as fast as we could to meet up with a friend who was going to take us to the Vancouver Ferry on our way to Vancouver Island. When we arrived at the Ferry, the gates were already closing. My wife jumped out of her friend’s van and ran to convince the attendant that he had to let us on. This was the last Ferry of the day and we did not come this way to miss the opportunity for a reunion that night. The attendant consented and we boarded.
We got to the hospital at 7:30pm. My mother in law was very lucid and thrilled to see us and meet her grand-daughter. When I saw her I realized we made it by a hair. She looked emaciated and beyond recovery. I then turned my sights to her spirit. We all engaged in idle conversations about the weather in Denver, the children’s lives and my work at the university. Nothing too heavy, nothing too deep.
It was time to say goodbye for the night and put the kids to bed. I went to hold her hand and say goodbye when suddenly everything changed. She grabbed my hand tightly and I noticed she was trembling. She looked at me with bone-chilling fear in her eyes and said “Help me.” In an unusually calm voice I said “You don’t have to be afraid.” She released her grip and smiled. We then went home. After that first night, she was unable to carry on a coherent conversation. We were fortunate to have made that Ferry.
For the next five nights, I was not functioning on this plane of reality. I did not understand my feelings but I knew that I was inextricably linked to her death journey. I was experiencing strange physical sensations including an intense pain in my arm and a loss of appetite. I also noticed that I had gone a day without drinking water. We went to visit her at the hospital and continued our idle chats. She would only listen and not speak. Then one moment, she looked straight at me and blurted out in front of my father in law, my sister in law and my wife, “Are you ready?” Everyone looked at me and I froze. I was not prepared to ask the obvious follow up- “Ready for what”. So I ignored the question and we continued on with our chatter.
What did she mean by am I ready? Ready for what? I continued to pray and read spiritual books. After that day, she was no longer able to speak. She had stopped eating and drinking water but held on for a week after we arrived. The night before she died, I was wide awake at 2am. I sat in my insomniatic state on the stairs leading to the kitchen and then I had a moment of realization. Similar to the movie Angel Heart, when Mickey Roarke’s character sees a series of flashbacks that brings clarity to his current predicament, I clearly saw that she needed me to release her. I was given empathic insight into her illness through the pain in my arm and loss of appetite so that I could experience our spiritual union at a deeper level. I then said in a soft yet audible voice, “I am ready”. I went back to bed but could not fall asleep until 4am.
She died the following morning. I believe she died in peace. This type of experience with the dying has happened since and will undoubtedly happen again. It is one piece of a large puzzle that I hope will be synthesized in my new life. It has since evolved to helping confused spirits cross over who would rather spend the time keeping my daughters awake in their room. This is enough for now. We’ll save that for another day.
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