Lorna Bell - Happy Endings: Uplifting End of Life Stories

Some people know when they will die.

Others actually choose when their death will occur.

Im ready, is a common statement.

Death seems to be more a process that is allowed than something that happens to us.

Bed of Roses

This is what I will be wearing when I die, my patient stated as she held up a beautiful blue Dior peignoir. In my years as a hospice nurse, most of my patients wore diapers, hospital gowns, even birthday suits, but I had never seen anyone wearing such an exquisite gown.

One day, this patient told her daughter that she was in the presence of her departed husband. She said it was a private conversation, and she wanted to be alone with him. The daughter asked if she could stay, but the mother insisted on privacy. The mother said that she and her husband had much to share in a short time. The daughter honored her mothers wishes.

This happened on a Tuesday, and the mother later explained that her husband would be back and that she would be going home with him on Sunday. Throughout the week she kept asking her daughter, Is it Sunday yet?

When Sunday arrived, the patient urged family members to leave for work as usual. Then she asked her son-in-law to buy her some roses and carnations. She also wanted him to bring the other flower arrangements that had been sent to her into her bedroom.

Her son-in-law returned at 2 p.m. with her flowers, and she asked to be by herself.

Thinking she was resting, her family didnt check on her until 6:15 p.m. They found her lying on a bed of roses, flower petals and flickering candles surrounding her, and she was wearing a radiant smile and her elegant blue Dior gown. Her rosary was in her hands.

The family later learned that their mother had prearranged for an airline ticket for the next day, so her casket could be transported. The destination? The city where her husband was buried. She wanted to be laid to rest by his side in her beautiful blue gown, on a bed of roses.

Cyndi Martin,

Georgia Cancer Specialists

It is not strange that early love of the heart should come back, as it so often does when the dim eye is brightening with its last light. It is not strange that the freshest fountains the heart has ever known in its wastes should bubble up anew when the lifeblood is growing stagnant. It is not strange that a bright memory should come to a dying old man, as the sunshine breaks across the hills at the close of a stormy day; nor that in the light of that ray, the very clouds that made the day dark should grow gloriously beautiful.

Hawthorne

The Jokester

Im a jokester, Bill said several times during his morning admission to our in-patient hospice. Bill loved to talk, so his admission took several hours longer than usual. Each question reminded him of a story or a joke, and when Bill held court, he couldnt and wouldnt be hurried. He was especially proud of the black book he had started in 1938. It was filled with his favorite jokes.

When Bills family and friends went out for lunch, he shared his master plan with me. He wanted me to advise his children that he had set a time, a deadline as he called it, after which he would receive no visitors. He wanted everyone to say goodbye, and then to leave him alone to concentrate on dying.

Many of his family members and friends were coming from out-of-town, and some were flying in that night. Bargaining for the children, I suggested a deadline of five days. Bill shook his head no. Two days? I asked. He shook his head no again, and replied, eight oclock tonight.

I warned Bill that he was looking pretty good, and he might not be able to die that quickly, even with peace and quiet and concentration. After I agreed to relate his wishes to the family, Bill told me his favorite risque joke to cheer me up.

Bills family accepted his deadline and said their goodbyes. They were gone by 8 p.m. that night. At 10 p.m., an out-of-town relative who did not know about the deadline came in. I checked Bills room, but we didnt disturb him, as he appeared to be fast asleep or deeply concentrating.