Mom still had the power to say things that would calm me down in the midst of the ongoing anxiety attack that had become my life. I wasn’t as Zen as she was. I was preoccupied on a minute-to-minute basis with precisely everything she would miss, all the things she wouldn’t experience. I looked at all the entries in her wall calendar that would never happen. It wasn’t as though Mom was joining the 27 Club, but she was too young to die. She still had so much to live for. She wanted to finish her play, teach writing in Italy, and find a truly great relationship. “I have a completely different view of love,” she told me. “If I ever am lucky enough to have love again, it will not be with a high-achieving, witty, attractive alpha man who’s narcissistic. I don’t want someone who doesn’t care about my feelings. I am off that!”
But Mom never felt sorry for herself. “It’s not a tragedy at my age that I’m dying,” she’d say. I knew she was technically right. People die—and live—in far more horrendous circumstances every day. We were the fortunate of the unfortunate: I could take time away from my job to be with her. We had taxpayer-funded health care and enough money to make the situation a lot easier on us. I was aware of our privilege, yet it still felt like a tragedy to me. My life—albeit small in the grand scheme of things—felt like it was collapsing. I was expecting to have her for at least another twenty years.
* * *
—
PERHAPS IT WAS my radio producer’s reflex, but one day I brought home a Marantz audio recorder from work. Inspired by NPR’s StoryCorps, I wanted to interview Mom about her life—an exit interview of sorts. The idea was to preserve as many of her stories—as much of her—as I could. I’d been nudging her for weeks to do a recording session with me, but she’d been putting me off. She was always “too busy.” Whereas I was constantly unnerved by the tick, tick, tick sound in my head, Mom was acting as though there’d always be more time.
But she knew it was important to me, so eventually she acquiesced. I started off with the vitals: family history, her parents, childhood, university years. She told me more about living in Israel in her twenties—how she’d taught English to diplomats and pop stars, edited a book by a former Israeli chess champion, and worked on a border kibbutz where they were shelled every night. Her boyfriend was Shimon Peres’s speechwriter, so she attended interesting political parties. It had been an exciting adventure for her.
We got into a routine. Every time I came over we’d do an hour-long session, or until she got too tired. It was a meaningful way to spend time together. What started out as a favour to me turned out to be an enjoyable—and maybe even therapeutic—experience for her. Mom had been doing inventory on her life anyway, but this was an opportunity to really hash things out. It was enjoyable for me, too: I was learning things about Mom I never knew. I’d never just sat and listened to her for hours.
One afternoon we were lounging in the sunroom, savouring our last days before the move, and I was asking Mom about her favourite things. “I love poetry. I’ve read and memorized tons of it,” she told me. She paused. I was learning how to be more patient in these moments when she’d trail off, her mind taking an introverted detour to another place. A wistful look crept across her face. “Can I share a Mary Oliver poem with you?” she asked tentatively. She knew poetry wasn’t really my jam.
“Of course,” I said.
“Mary Oliver lives in Provincetown, by the way. She’s gay!” As if I needed the sales pitch.
Mom got up off the couch to look for her Mary Oliver book. This was clearly important to her. A minute later she returned, book in hand. “The poem’s called ‘The Summer Day,’ ” she announced as she searched through the pages to find it. Before reading out the first line she looked up at me with a sly smile, acknowledging that yes, we were about to have a poetry reading.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
Mom’s voice started to crack. Obviously the poem was speaking to her in a way it never had before. She began to cry but kept on going.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Breaking the fourth wall, Mom looked up again. “This is great for me, by the way. It’s very cathartic,” she laughed through her tears. “And isn’t it interesting how everything she says has extra resonance?” She took a big breath and launched into the last lines with zeal.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Still crying, Mom didn’t even pause before reflecting. “Every day since the diagnosis, in the middle of doing my exercises, I would say out loud, ‘I am awake to this day of my one wild and precious life.’ And I have been. I’ve lived very richly, darling. Like all my life, but especially in the past few years. I really have.” She paused. “I want you to know that. And I want you to think of that too. Think of your one wild and precious life and don’t waste any time.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Even if it was cliché, her dying was making me more conscious of how precious life is. In my post-Jian awakening, I was already coming to see how, to a certain extent, I’d been coasting through my days for the past several years, always managing more than truly living. This past year especially, I’d been so utterly consumed with my crazy work situation and Mom’s illness that I was just barely getting by. I thought about how, after I’d finished helping Mom die, I would try to live life more fully. Turn up the volume a little. I had a new sense of urgency. I wanted to start actually making the things I’d always hoped for happen. I didn’t know exactly what that looked like, but I knew I didn’t want to sleepwalk through my life anymore.
* * *
—
ON MOTHER’S DAY I woke up with dread, knowing it would be my last with Mom. Another “last,” another part of our life together being ripped away. We never really took Mother’s Day that seriously in our family—Mom would often reschedule our family brunch to a more convenient date for her—but this year it felt a little more meaningful.
Josh, Melissa, and Little Molly hosted us at their house. Big Molly came too. It was a warm, sunny spring day and we all sat outside on the back deck. I normally bought Mom quirky jewellery or some artsy ornament on gift-giving occasions, but under the circumstances it seemed silly to get her anything that would outlast her. I guess we’d all had the same thought. Everyone got her flowers; they were as ephemeral as she was.
Mom leaned back on the wicker sectional, making herself comfortable. Her arms looked like pure skin and bones poking out of her grey AGO T-shirt. Her thick calves bulged from her capri pants. On her feet, too swollen now to fit into shoes, she wore black Velcro sandals.
Considering the subtext, everyone was in a good mood. Mom seemed happy and cheerful. She picked at some fruit while the rest of us scarfed down bagels with lox and cream cheese.
After brunch, I gave Mom a foot rub while Josh got out his guitar to play her some songs. It was very sweet. Josh could be so earnest and sincere sometimes. I often wondered where he got it from. For his grand finale, he s
tood up and began strumming the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I think Mary reminded him of 70s-era Mom—her look, her style, the fact that she was an unapologetic feminist on the go. At the first line, Mom and I immediately locked eyes and grinned. We knew what was coming. As Josh belted out the chorus, Mom couldn’t resist: You’re gon-na BAKE it after all! she sang over him, throwing an imaginary beret into the air. I wasn’t sure whether she meant her upcoming cremation or her new cannabis oil habit or both, but her ability to laugh and rally in the face of it all filled my heart with even more love and respect for her.
“It’s obviously a capitalist made-up holiday, but today was really nice,” Mom said when the two of us got back to her place afterward. We were sitting in the sunroom.
“What does it make you think about?” I asked.
Mom began reflecting. “It’s not that I’m afraid so much of dying. It’s more that I’m afraid you guys will need me and I won’t be there.”
I nodded. “Yeah, the irony is that you’re the one I’ll need to help me get through the grief of losing you.”
“You’ll have to sit on the bench,” she said. Mom wanted a memorial bench in Cedarvale Ravine so that everyone who knew her could sit and talk to her once she was gone. She’d been a great listener in life and wanted to be one in death, too.
“I’m not going to talk out loud to the ghost of my dead mom on a park bench.”
“You might! My friends plan to.”
“How about I ask you for some advice now, while you can still, like, answer me?”
Mom happily agreed. I turned on the recorder.
“What should I do when I miss you?”
“Well, I have a lot of diaries, if you want to read them. I’m not going to throw them out,” she said, a smirk forming on her lips. “If you want to know about my sex life, you can.”
“Mommm.” I rolled my eyes.
“But you might want to. Or read pieces of them. It would really bring me back. They’re all handwritten. They’re pretty raw.”
“What else?”
“Another thing you can do is just talk to me. I’m sort of serious. Keep a little jar of my ashes, and just think you’re talking to me.”
“It’s not the same,” I lamented. I wanted a more satisfying answer.
“No, it’s not the same,” Mom quietly agreed.
We both went silent for a few seconds, quietly absorbing the blatant truth of the matter.
Mom then continued. “Or talk to other people. Unfortunately people die. We all die. And the people left behind are the ones who really suffer.”
“But what do I do if you’re not around for something really big in my life?”
“Oh, cripes.” She sighed. “There’s nothing you can do. Except, I want to tell you this, and I want you to remember it—I couldn’t be any prouder of you than I am today. But I wish I could see that. I do. I wish I could see everything that goes on in your life from now on.”
It was comforting to hear Mom say those words. And I knew they were true. She’d always been my biggest champion. I wasn’t sure what I’d even be able to achieve without her in my corner anymore.
“I just had a thought,” Mom piped up. “If you do have a daughter, will you give her Elaine, even as a middle name?”
“Sure,” I said. “If I have a daughter.”
“Or a dog. I mean, how many dogs are named Elaine?” she said, laughing. “It would be very interesting.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be weird at all…‘Sit, Elaine!’ ” I held out my index finger like Cesar Millan. “ ‘Roll over, Elaine!’ ” I kind of liked the fantasy of one day having an Elaine who obeyed my commands.
“But what if I’m jealous of other people who still have their moms?” I asked.
“Well, when you concentrate on gratitude and what you were given, it’s hard to feel sorry for yourself. All the good things I’ve been able to pass on to you, the time and attention I’ve given you, and support in growing up and having adventures. So I would consciously look for some gratitude in that moment. Like, ‘I had a mother who did give me that. I have some of that inside of me now. It’s part of me. And I did get some good mothering…’ ” Mom trailed off. “I mean, everybody has issues. It’s a complicated relationship. But I think ours has been great. And great is better than perfect.”
“What do I do if I’m so depressed that I can’t get out of bed or go to work?” I asked.
“I would tell you to see a therapist,” she said, laughing.
“No, really, what would you tell me?”
Mom thought about it for a few seconds. “I would tell you that everyone has a lot of sadness in their life, no matter what they look like on the outside. Everyone suffers. So it’s not weird or wrong to be sad.”
“But what if the grief is just too much?”
“It won’t be easy. Losses are losses. They’re really hard. And there’s no time limits to grieving, or no way it goes. It can go in waves. You can go for a while where you’re not truly suffering and then, bang! It hits you again. But also, we’re a mother and daughter—uh, son—and so we’re very entwined. You’ll never forget me.”
“So what do I do?”
“Well, one thing you can do is just sit with it. That’s the Buddhist way. If you’re sad, be sad. You just feel the loss and the pain, and it will move. It will move a lot faster than if you try to suppress it or push it away. Sometimes it’s just better to say, ‘I’m missing my mother right now.’ ”
I was trying to take in everything she was telling me, but it was still all so hypothetical. I glanced down at the recorder and tried to imagine what I would need to hear in the future.
“Let’s role-play this,” I said. “Pretend you’re dead, and I’m sitting on your bench. I’m really missing you, and I’m feeling down. What would you say to me from the other side?”
Mom took a moment to collect her thoughts. “I’d say, ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling down. Again, just let yourself feel it.’ And then here’s what I’m telling you—” She took a deep breath before delivering her posthumous sermon. “You are one of everybody in the world. And, I mean, you can escape it by dying when you’re a baby I guess, but you can’t escape suffering and pain if you live long enough. Illness, old age. It’s part of who we are. It’s part of life. And it really sucks, for both of us, that I had to go so soon. But you have in you everything I gave you, including the stuff you may have to talk to a shrink about”—she chuckled—“and you have all your natural, extraordinary qualities, and I just have complete faith that you’ll be able to create a good life. A very good life. And so you’re really, really going to be all right. I just know that for sure.”
16
DYING WITH DIGNITY
Mom barely had the energy to leave her apartment anymore, but there was still one outing she was intent on taking. “I’m not afraid of dying,” she told me. “But I am afraid of being in pain for a long time—that’s why I’m going to Dying with Dignity.” Mom made an appointment with the end-of-life rights organization so that she could learn how to off herself, if need be. Josh and I both said we’d go with her. It would be a family field trip.
We arrived at the organization’s unremarkable offices in a nondescript midtown building, where we were greeted by a counsellor. Nino had a mellow, sensitive vibe. He looked about forty, with a shaved head, intense eyes, and a greying soul patch.
“What drew you to this kind of work?” Mom asked him as he led us into a small meeting room.
“I experienced a deep loss in my life. A person I was close to died,” Nino explained. “My regular psychotherapy practice has nothing to do with dying people, but I work here part-time because it’s especially meaningful.” It was a story I was beginning to hear a lot from those who worked in the death field. Elizabeth, Mom’s death doula, had also experienced a pro
found loss.
The four of us sat down in a circle.
“Do you want to die at home or in a hospice?” Nino asked Mom.
“At home as long as possible. I’m open to a hospice, but I don’t want to end up in a hospital,” Mom insisted. “I don’t want to have to eat their food.” She took charge of the conversation. “Whether intentionally or not”—she threw me a glance—“a lot of doctors have scared me. I even had one doctor say to me, ‘You will die an excruciating death.’ I don’t want to spend months in intolerable pain. I hate intolerable pain.” She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Like, I’m really special.”
Nino smiled.
“So if I do want to kill myself, how do I do it?” Mom asked. Small talk was over.
Nino spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “As you’re probably aware, physician-assisted suicide will be legal next year in Canada. But it looks like that option is not something you can wait for. I’m hearing that you may want to do something sooner.”
Mom nodded.
“So there are two methods that are supported within the medical community, and you might be a candidate for both—in that the doctors should not have a problem supporting you.” Nino proceeded to outline the various methods.
It was the ultimate self-help seminar: How to Kill Yourself in Four Easy Ways!
Option 1: Stop eating and drinking.
Mom didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t even like fasting for Yom Kippur,” she said.
“Typically, at that point, you’re not eating much anyway,” Nino explained. Mom looked doubtful. Her one cheese blintz still beckoned every morning.
Option 2: Go to sleep and never wake up.
Terminal sedation involved a medical professional administering a slow and steady dose of pain medication. “Essentially, you lose consciousness and don’t come back. It might take a few days,” Nino said. “They could do it in a minute, but that could be considered assisting, so they need to do it gradually.”
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