It’s not necessarily a personal rejection of their loved ones, so please don’t think your aunt was avoiding you specifically or her family in general. In my experience, it’s the goodbye scene that the terminally ill are rejecting. It’s not just illness, either. Many people go out of their way not to be the center of attention, period. There are brides who dread aisles, birthday honorees who dread their own parties, sufferers who conceal their pain for fear of mobilizing a help army, patients who deflect bedside displays of concern.
Ha ha. I identify with that, not as a person who has hidden a disease, but as a person who had the smallest possible wedding and who hasn't had a birthday party since my age was in the single digits.
I think if the aunt saw her loved ones as she was dying, she was saying goodbye to them, and she wanted to see them as they were to her when they saw her as she was when she was not dying. That is, she didn't want them transformed into something strangely overdramatic but to experience life while she was still in it.
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I identify with that, not as a person who has hidden a disease, but as a person who had the smallest possible wedding and who hasn't had a birthday party since my age was in the single digits.
Feel free to come right out and ask us to send you presents and bake you a cake.
Good on her, the aunt.
Sometimes the desire is not to become the center of attention. Other times, the desire is to avoid giving others and excuse to become the center of attention. I didn't attend, but from what I've been told by family, when my grandmother died, my aunt and cousin turned the funeral into a performative act all about them. As a society, we've moved away from the stoic endurance of suffering and towards the worst sorts of public displays of grief.
My friend, the late Fr. John P. Schlegel, S.J., did it the right way. He had pancreatic cancer. There is no cure. And the chemo and whatever the docs would try doesn't work and just makes you miserable.
So, he went on a victory and farewell tour. He'd been President of the University of San Francisco before he came back to Creighton as President. He knew most of the movers and shakers at USF and he hung out with them. He was the pastor at the parish church at Marquette when he got sick.
His rich Omaha friends threw a party for him in Omaha. In attendance were the former CEOs of ConAgra and Kiewit companies along with one US Senator. Many other Omaha and Iowa big wheels.
His funeral was a real event. DDB's contribution was an OWH essay.
He was a real people person. He went out in style.
It's no wonder degrees in psychology have been devalued. We're all psychologists now.
We had a dear friend in our group like this. One of a kind, cherished by everyone. That's how she played it after discovering a sudden illness that took her away six months after the diagnosis. She wanted to spend that time with her husband and kids and friends as normally as possible instead of a tedious parade of mourners. I would have been one of them. Those of us who lived out out of town missed out--I'll see her next year--but when we found out at the last minute and a bunch of us were gathered at the hospital, I remember thinking, smart girl. (By that time she was really far gone and didn't have us come upstairs either. I think we all understood).
I cherish a hope that the "final saying of goodbyes" scenes will eventually go the way of having lots of people in the room when you are having your baby. That was a thing there for awhile, leading to many pregnant women having to engage in mental and social gymnastics to figure out how to keep their mother-in-law out of the labor and delivery room.
For some people (some people who are dying and some people who are having a baby) these heightened social interactions and engagements are just what they want.
For many others it's an awkward performance and everyone feels somewhat worse, not better, because of that.
I dreaded the birthday cake at the office when I worked at an office.
My choice would definitely be like the aunt's.
Jimmy Stewart's wife Gloria concealed her fatal cancer from him until the end. He never recovered and declined to have his pacemaker replaced when the battery ran out.
My inclintion would be to keep any terminal illness secret and just carry on till the end. why make a fuss about it? We all gotta go sometime. I truly despised Christopher Hitchens and his "I"m dying of Cancer, please feel sorry for me" tour.
THe only thing I haven't decided, is this: If I got terminal cancer, would I keep on till the very end, or just end it all? There's something pathetic about dragging it out, like McCain, and dying in a hospital bed. I'd rather go out when I decide.
The aunt pulled a Norm MacDonald. I have a lot of admiration for that path, and tend to think I'd do the same. But to each their own - don't like it, do something different if you should get the chance.
I should add that Fr. Schlegel's farewell and victory tour was a celebration of his life and a way to say goodbye to his friends when he was still healthy. It wasn't about feeling sorry for him. It was a great party!
I later visited him in hospice, and it wasn't the same. And, of course, he couldn't enjoy the reception after his funeral.
"Know the great men of your age." Baltasar Gracian, S.J.
I was very lucky to know Fr. Schlegel. He should have been the first American and Jesuit Pope. He was qualified. He would have run the papacy in a very different fashion.
As Robeet Heinlein said in one of his books, "Goodbyes are not a comfort, only remembrance is a comfort".
I don't worry quite so much about being the center of attention (my first wedding was a blast; I kept my second wedding small because you're not supposed to get a second wedding), but I can see the value in wanting to interact with your friends and family as they are and not when they're in condolences mode. When my parents died, people were so full of caring and concern that I felt like I needed to console them.
My grandmother and her doctors struck an interesting compromise. At 95 she was diagnosed with AML. Prognosis, six to eight weeks. She said no to any treatment: She'd had a good run, she was sorry to be leaving but it was time.
Her daughter-in-law, a doctor, convinced her: comfort treatment, just enough painkillers to take the edge off, and let's let the large number of people who love you know that if they'd like to pay you a visit, August would be a really good time for it.
Her younger great-grandkids didn't know it was goodbye. The rest of us who knew took our cues from her. How we'll all remember her is sitting up in bed, mostly sharp as ever mentally, smiling. Honestly surprised at all the family and old friends who'd come to see her.
I'm grateful it worked out that way. I know how few of us get to be that lucky.
I plan to have a destination funeral, somewhere nice.
This is me. I'm just finishing my radiation treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma.
This has a 5 year survivorship of ~90%, so I was never worried about dying. But I don't like the attention that this has garnered. My work wants to hold a party when I come back into the office, and I asked them not to. I'd like to just move on like it wasn't an issue.
Maybe this aunt just had class.
Tom T. said...
"I plan to have a destination funeral, somewhere nice."
Yeah. We all do. But some of has some 'splainin' to first.
"I think if the aunt saw her loved ones as she was dying, she was saying goodbye to them, and she wanted to see them as they were to her when they saw her as she was when she was not dying."
There is a principle in literary criticism, that you aren't supposed to try to access facts that the text does not supply. This is especially true of works of fiction. One may make logical inferences about the content of a historical text, but nothing is "true" in the context of a fictional text except what the author has chosen to reveal. Even that may be complicated by unreliable narration.
My last corporate training prior to retirement was on the Enneagram. Type 5 people dislike being the center of attention. So 7% of women and 14% of men may want to keep this stuff private. My wife insisted that I tell our children about my cancer or I might have been quiet about it. She was in the room when the doctor told me.
If you can’t have your way the way you want it on your deathbed, when can you? Seriously, can I just die my own way? Who is more entitled to the way I die than I am? After going through a long life where other people demanded my attention and performance, can’t I have just that one last thing my way – dammit!
If you can’t have your way the way you want it on your deathbed, when can you? Seriously, can I just die my own way? Who is more entitled to the way I die than I am? After going through a long life where other people demanded my attention and performance, can’t I have just that one last thing my way – dammit!
Reminded of one of the terrible aspects to succumbing in a hospital during the pandemic before visitors were allowed.
… my Father just shot himself.
… no goodbyes. Problem solved.
I forgive him every day.
I hope by my tone you can easily hear the disbelief I still feel over this.
We never share stories, as one should. The last story, unrepeatable- sucks the life out of those of us left behind in such a way.
Some things need to be… shared.
A goodbye is a gift.
When I say just- I don’t mean now. It was 7+yrs ago.
One would think the bitterness- the sting- would fade.
So far it hasn’t. Although, grief is tiring.
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