"I Never Said Goodbye!"
I have had a lot of experience with people who are dying. I have had entirely too much experience with people who are dying. I think that dying is kind of like fame. The newly famous person doesn't change much, but the people around him change a lot.
For example, some people become preoccupied with saying "goodbye." "I never said goodbye," they'll say. And it becomes a lifelong regret. Or, "I'm so glad I had the chance to say goodbye." Another favorite is, "She stayed alive until Tommy could get to her bedside, because she wanted to say goodbye."
As if the dying person were boarding a bus, or something.
When my mother was dying, my brother and I took care of her at home for about two years. She rested in bed, this once robust woman now so tiny and frail and young, as family and friends came to "say goodbye."
Now, I understand that people who lose loved ones in accidents suffer with feelings of never having said goodbye. But, given the opportunity, would they really have chosen to say something so morbid and hurtful to someone they loved?
"I understand you're going to be dying soon, Herman, and I just wanted to say - adios!"
I mean, after the person's death, you know where you're going to be, but he has no idea where he is going to be. He's facing the great abyss. Those "goodbyes" are scary stuff.
In private moments, my mother and I would laugh at the many ridiculous things about dying. One of the things we found funniest was people's need to say goodbye. After a while she joked, "Why don't they just march in, salute, and bark, 'Well, so long!' and leave?"
What we discovered in those two years was that in recent years, the dying process had become about the feelings of those who were going to be left behind - and not about the person who was about to depart.
After all, these visitors couldn't possibly have imagined that they were cheering up my mother by saying "goodbye." They were doing it for themselves, not for her.
And what a terrible time of life to be taken for granted - especially if the dying person was giving and loving and spent her lifetime caring for others. Very few people asked Mother how she was feeling, and I can't recall a single person bringing a flower, a chocolate or a magazine.
However, one woman wrote a lovely letter detailing all of the things my mother had done for her, and asked us not to open it until she left. What a cherished gift that was. I think my mother read it 100 times.
I learned a lot of lessons during those years. Chief among them was this: When visiting the dying, the greatest gift one can give is to come out of one's self and make the visit about the sick person, and not about one's own grief, and fear of death. The dying are still as alive as they ever were; they still enjoy a compliment as much as they ever did; they still need a laugh, a touch, and a Nut Goodie.
And as far as I'm concerned, there is no need to say goodbye. They're never so far away that they can't hear us. My mother visits all the time!