Stages

At the hospital, I had a conversation with Alice one night when she seemed to be having a tough time.  As I recall, it was the fourth or fifth night, after we were move upstairs to the 7th floor (probably Monday), and we weren't sure how long my mom was going to hang on.

Alice was worn out and the uncertainty was killing her.  Jude likened it to a race, except that you don't know when it's going to end.

We found ourselves sitting around my mom's hospital bed, our senses heightened and our emotions raw, watching for even the smallest sign that my mom was near to breathing her last breath.  Every time her breathing became more labored or shallow, we were convinced the end was near.  And, at least for a few more days, we were wrong.

It's hard for me to describe how we felt, how I felt, in those moments.  There was no peace, not then.  There was stress, anxiety, sadness, uncertainty, pain, frustration and exhaustion.  Those were dark emotions in a dark, dark time.  I think part of the exhaustion - the mental exhaustion - stemmed from our minds working overtime trying to process what we were experiencing in real time.  None of us had any real frame of reference so it was virtually impossible to put any of it in perspective.

As I talked to Alice, I suggested that way I was trying to handle everything emotionally - not that it was the right way, just my way - was to take it one stage at time.

The first stage was the dying part.  We had to get my mom to the finish line.  In other words, that was our first task.

The second stage was planning and executing the funeral.  That, of course, would involve a lot of telephone calls, meetings and planning.  Legwork.  Some of it mindless, some of it incredibly sad.

The third, and final, stage was grieving.  After my mom died and after the funeral was over, there would be grief.  Wave after wave of grief.

The key, I told Alice, was to recognize that you can only be in one stage at a time.  In other words, I was determined not to try to plan the funeral while my mind was still processing the fact that my mom was dying.  I also couldn't - and shouldn't - worry about how sad I was going to be when it was all over before my mom had died or we had planned and participated in the funeral.

The point, I think, was to stay in the moment.  For two reason, really.  One, to make sure I was fully engaged and that I didn't miss anything.  Two, because my mind and, I suppose, my heart, simply weren't equipped to process all of it at once.

I reminded her of what my grandmother, Mary Alice Ussery, always said - "How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time."  Good advice.

Did that approach help her?  I don't know.  It helped me, though.