I haven’t had as much experience with death as some.
On one hand, my childhood contained plenty of animal death. Cows died sometimes. My dad shot three of our dogs when they got too old to move, and we tearfully brought another dog to be euthanized at the vet when it was diagnosed with diabetes. Countless cats disappeared, and more than a few kittens kicked the bucket, some in gruesome ways. One night when I was ten or eleven, I wanted to feel sad (kids are weird) and tried to tally up all the animals I knew that had died. I can’t recall the total but it seemed like it was over fifty.
On the other hand, I was spared the death of someone I loved until after college.
My dad died in a plane crash the summer I turned twenty-three – that was my first real experience.
A fact about me I’m ashamed to share: I’ve never performed CPR in a read code event. The opportunity never came up in med school, and when someone coded in the ICU during residency and I saw everyone lining up for their turn at chest compressions in what seemed quite obviously to be a futile attempt at resuscitation, it didn’t seem like giving a few of my own chest compressions was going to help me or the patient.
I’ve observed several codes, none of which ultimately was successful. (This demonstrates how few I’ve seen, because statistically in the hospital about 1/3 to 1/4 are at least successful at restarting the heart.)
I didn’t pronounce someone dead until my fellowship year. An older woman in my care had been placed on comfort care with the goal of leaving the hospital on hospice. She wasn’t doing well, but had been stable for several days. Right before the end of my shift, her nurse paged and asked me to come up, because my patient had died. In a moment of gallows humor, I had a shock when I was listening for a heart beat and watching the patient’s chest – it was rising and falling. Then I realized her air bed was still on. The nurse turned it off, and she was still.
Our daughter, Lindy, died in our arms. She just gradually stopped breathing. The nurse listened to her heart and said she had died, but when the nurse practitioner came to confirm, her heart was still beating, slowly. It kept beating for a few more hours as we held her close in the hospital bed.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon sitting next to a great aunt who is dying. Part of the time she moaned and moved her head back and forth, most of the time she slept. I don’t think she knew I was there. Her pulse was high, probably 120 beats per minute. Still breathing steady but sometimes with a rattle. I sat with her in the hospital in July and thought she was dying then, although she’s further down that path now. I don’t know how long her earthly journey will continue. Sometimes it happens so quickly, like with my dad. Other times over a few hours, with Lindy. My great aunt is taking a harder, longer road, God only knows why.
I hate death. People say death is just a part of life, but they’re wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
What I do know is that the God of the universe experienced death as Jesus Christ, and he conquered it.
Resurgam.
SDG