My grandfather died several years before I was born, so the family stories provided my only connection with who he was and the short life he lived. The story I remember most vividly was the way he and the family approached death. He was given the gift of "dying ritual," Something bit him while he was repairing the roof. He developed what they called blood poisoning in those days and there was no cure. 

Neither he nor the family tried to deny his pending death. He had the time and opportunity to call each of his children to his bed and talk with them openly and honestly about his love for them, what the death would mean to the family, and any instructions he had for their survival in the middle of a depression and a dust bowl. There were seven children in the family with the youngest son being nine months old. It was already evident that one of the daughters would be somewhat of a rebel, so he called her to his bedside twice. As long as they lived, the other children wondered what he said to that daughter and she was just rebel enough to never tell them. 

He died with the family gathered by his side facing the horrible event and the tough future to follow together. 

That kind of death would be very rare today. Our fear and denial of death has robbed us of dying rituals. A physician said, "No one dies of old age anymore. At one time that could be the cause of death listed on a death certificate. Now we must die of some disease with a long name after an intense but losing effort to avoid the inevitable." Too often people die in isolation with everyone trying to shield them from the truth. 

A very ill friend asked for me to come to his hospital room. His family met me in the waiting room begging me not to tell him he was dying. He made everyone leave the room and the first words he spoke were, "Get me to hospice. I know I am dying and this acting like I am not doing so is horrible." The family met me at the door with "you didn't tell him did you?" I said, "no he told me, and he wishes to tell you as well."

We seem to be convinced that the moment someone knows they are going to die, they will do so immediately, so we try to hide the truth from them. We think we are protecting them from fear and adding time to their lives, but neither is true. Most folks who are dying know they are doing so. There are too many clues, too many whispers in the halls, too many looks on too many sad faces. They know, but they know they cannot talk about it. They end up protecting the family while the family protects them. The last days become a charade that is increasingly more difficult to maintain.

I have had the opportunity to walk with several folks as they were dying. I will write about many of them in future blogs. One of the ones I will write about was named Bob. I spent time each Monday for over a year helping Bob die. I became the only person he wanted to see and he would say that loud and long. One day he told me the reason I was the one he wanted to see. He said, "All the others come in telling me how much better I look and want to be so positive. If I tell them I am not doing very well they immediately try to cheer me up. When I tell you that you tell me the truth and we can talk about what is really going on and where I really am in this deal." When I asked him how it felt for people to respond like they do, he said, "Lonely, it feels lonely, like there is not one in this with me, no one to talk to about what it feels like to die, no one I can know will be there with me when the time comes." Bob was asking for dying ritual. I came away wondering how many people are having to die lonely because of our fears.