End of Life Care

When my grandmother was dying, she was brought back to her home from the hospital. My father and his siblings all stayed in the house and cared for her, with the help of visiting hospice nurses. One day towards the end, my father heard my grandmother tell one of the nurses how embarrassed and sorry she was that the nurse had to deal with her incontinence. The nurse turned to my grandmother and said simply, “I love doing this.” To this day, my father will tear up when telling that story, and hearing it from him had a strong residual effect on my brother and me. Now when I think about death, I still remember the story he told us when we were kids, which I’ve turned into a kind of romanticized death fantasy. I imagine myself in the place of my grandmother, dying in bed at home, surrounded by my kids and cared for by angelic-looking hospice nurses. It’s the same image since I was 7, I haven’t updated it at all, despite my much more current interactions with illness and aging. I think I’m really unable to think about it more seriously than that, I just kinda turn off.

My father is the same way. Whenever I broach the topic he either says he wants me to drop him off in the woods and drive away when he gets too old, or that I don’t need to worry about dealing with him at all, cause he’s going to “ride the big wave” when he’s ready to check out. However, by treading carefully with him and talking about the deaths of his parents, rather than specifically his death or mine, we were able to both have a (slightly indirect) conversation about our wishes related to end of life care. I was unable to ask about funeral stuff, but the healthcare questions are almost more about values and beliefs and much easier to talk about.