“I can’t decide if missing the 2020 election is terrible timing, or excellent timing.”
“It probably depends on who wins,” I say, smiling a little.
“The not knowing. That’s what’s killing me,” Win murmurs. “Well. That, and cancer.” She glances at me. “I’m okay with dying. I really am. But I don’t want to do it wrong, you know? Does that sound ridiculous? I just wish I could know what’s going to happen. How I’ll know it’s time.”
I have not thought about my failed doctorate in a long time—at least not until I was reading Win those hieroglyphics. But I remember that what fascinated me most about the Book of Two Ways was how comforting it would be to have a map to reach the afterlife. Even the Ancient Egyptians recognized that knowledge was the difference between a good death and a bad one.
“I don’t know how long you have,” I say carefully, “and I don’t know what the process is going to feel like. But I can help you understand what happens to your body.”
Guided death meditation is something I usually do with healthy people who want to understand how to help those who are terminally ill. But I think it might help Win a little; bring her some peace. The meditation was developed by Joan Halifax and Larry Rosenberg, based on the nine contemplations of dying—written by Atisha, a highly revered Tibetan monk, in the eleventh century.
Win says she’d like to try it, so I help her out of bed and have her lie on the floor in corpse pose. I sit next to her, legs crossed. “If anything I say starts to stress you out,” I tell Win, “raise a finger.”
She looks at me and nods.
“Just listen to my voice,” I say, and I begin, pitching my tone even and soft. “All of us will die sooner or later. No one can prevent death; it’s the outcome of birth. It’s inevitable. Not a single sentient being—no matter how spiritually evolved, or powerful, or wealthy, or motivated—has escaped death. Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed did not escape death, and neither will you or I. All the gifts of your life—education and money and status and fame and family and friends—will make no difference at the moment of death. In fact, they can make it harder, because we hold on to them. What are you doing right now that will help you die? Hold your answer in your head. On the inbreath, think:Death is inevitable. On the outbreath, think:I, too, will die.”
I move on to the second contemplation, rising up on my knees to dim the light beside the bed. “Your life span shortens every second you live. There is the moment of your birth, and the moment of your death, and your movement toward death never stops. Every breath you take in and release brings you closer. Appreciate what you have now, because there may be no tomorrow. If your life span is decreasing every day, what are you doing now to appreciate what you have left? What gives your life meaning?”
Win’s finger twitches and I wait, but she relaxes.
“Every word you speak, every breath you take, moves you closer to the end of your life. On the inbreath, inhale gratitude for the additional seconds you have been given. On the outbreath, think of the seconds that have passed in your life.”
I watch her chest rise and fall. “Death will come whether or not we are prepared. Of the one million three hundred thousand thoughts we have each day, precious few are about how to meet the challenge of death. Can you listen to me, now, as if there is no tomorrow? Are you ready to die?”
I work through the other contemplations: that death has many causes; that the body is fragile and vulnerable; that loved ones can’t keep you from dying. I ask her to imagine herself on her deathbed, growing weaker, picturing her house and her clothing and jewelry, her paintings and her bank account and her wine collection—all the comforts she has worked hard for, now useless. “Dying means letting go of everything,” I tell her. “Picture everything you have being given away to friends and to relatives. Some of it may wind up in a thrift store or a dumpster. You can take nothing with you. On the inbreath, think about this. On the outbreath, let go of everything that is yours.”
I end on the body, the very thing that is failing her. “You’ve spent so much time working on your physical self. Feeding it, watering it, exercising, dressing and undressing, soothing pain, feeling pleasure. You’ve spent hours looking in mirrors, trying to feel beautiful. You have treasured your body. You have despised it. And at the moment of death, you lose it. Imagine the moment before you die. You have already contemplated the fact that you are losing your money, your loved ones, your status, your identity. You will also lose the shell it all comes in. What can you do to acknowledge this? To prepare yourself?”
Then I lean closer to her, urging her to tense and release different muscles and limbs and thoughts. “Imagine your organs are shutting down, now,” I murmur. “You have no more desire to eat or to drink. Next is your central nervous system. You can’t move. You lose your connection to your limbs. Your eyes may roll in your head, you may not be able to keep them open. Finally, your respiratory system will slow down. Breath won’t come easily or naturally.” I sit in the quiet, feeling the absence of noise press against my eardrums and my skin. “Your legs. Your hands. Your head. Your brain. Your abdomen. Your kidneys and liver and intestines. All the big and small muscles and bones. They are gone. Consciousness is moving toward your heart, your center. You’re shrinking inward to a point of light. Your breathing is getting shallower. Your energy is draining. Your body temperature drops. You can’t feel the floor beneath you because you are weightless. You are aware now that you are dying, but that is the only consciousness you have left.” I pause. “You’re opening and opening and opening into consciousness. You’re part of all that ever was, and all that will ever be. You let go. Finally.”
I look down at Win with tears in my eyes. “You are safe,” I say. “You’re looking down at this body on the floor, with no more breath in it. You see people standing around your body.”
I wait a beat. “It’s a few days later, now, and the body is naked and cold.”
I count to twenty. “A few months later, there’s decay. Gases fill the body and it decomposes.”
Win doesn’t move. “A year has passed,” I whisper. “There are only old bones.”
I look down at her and imagine a world without her in it. “Fifty years. There is just dust. You are not here anymore. But you’re safe.”
We inhabit that dark, small truth for a long time.
Finally, I bring her back—first with a shallow breath, then with a stretch, then lengthening her muscles, then feeling her bones shift and her organs pump and process and her blood moving through her heart and the air filling her lungs and awareness sprawling to the tips of her toes and the roots of her hair. “What do you feel beneath you?” I ask. “Can you feel the carpet on your palms? What do you hear—pipes as water moves through them? Your own heartbeat? What do you smell? The lemon in the shampoo you use, the detergent in your bedding? What do you see?”
Win’s eyes blink open. “You,” she says. “I see you.”
—
YOU WOULD BEsurprised at what people wish they’d done when they get to the end of their lives. It’s not writing a novel, or climbing to Machu Picchu, or winning a medal in ice dancing. It’s having an ice cream sundae, or watering the houseplants more. Playing cards with a grandson. Catching up with an old friend.
My mother’s dying wish was, likewise, simple. She wanted to see the ocean one more time. That wasn’t something the residential hospice could do, but I was determined to make it happen. I talked to the doctors and priced out a transport vehicle. I bought my mother a floppy sunhat at Goodwill and sent a note to Kieran’s school saying that he would be absent the following Tuesday. But the day before we were scheduled to go, my mother took a turn for the worse. So instead, Kieran went to school, and I went to the North Shore. I filled gasoline jugs with ocean water. I shoveled sand into a Ziploc bag. I collected shells and jammed them into my pockets.
At the hospice facility, the nurses helped me get my mother into a sitting position. I wedged pillows beneath her knees and set her feet in a basin of the water. I poured sand into emesis basins, and placed them on each side of her chair, burying her fingers in beach. I told her to close her eyes, and I moved a gooseneck reading lamp closer to her face, so she could feel its warmth. Then I placed shells from her clavicles to her belly button.
But.
I could bring her the memory of the ocean, but I couldn’t take away the sound of the heart monitor.
