The dying are stripped down layer by layer.
First they lose their boundless future, perhaps in their own eyes but certainly in the eyes of others. They become “dead man walking” as their mortality hangs above them like a cloud, following them everywhere with a quiet tenacity.
When is unknown, but if is no longer a question.
Next they lose the implicit guarantee that tomorrow they’ll be able to do what they did today. Yesterday Yet (the cat) could get onto the couch via the kitty stairs we procured to assist his mobility. Today he stumbles in his attempt, crumples into a pile of kitty on the floor, and without attempting to get up meows at me as if to say “what happened? that’s not a thing that’s supposed to happen.” Tomorrow attempts will no longer be made and I’ll start a new part-time job as kitty elevator.
Then they lose control of functions that were previously automatic. Those in good standing with their lease in life don’t generally need to exert conscious control to prevent pee from dribbling out, nor to perform the intricate dance of muscle tightening and releasing required to evacuate the bladder. For the dying, these are difficult matters. To catch the inevitable dribble, we put pee pads to put under all his favorite comfy spots. When the time comes to the release of the entire contents of his bladder, I help him get into a pee-conducive position and put pressure on his bladder to remind his body about what we’re trying to do here.
For each function lost, we adapt and find a plateau of new normal. But these adaptions start to show cracks and the list of possible additional adaptions shortens. He doesn’t wake me up to let me know it is time to pee, because it is now as surprising to him as it is to me when his bladder spontaneously empties. We take it day by day, but we no longer find plateaus. We stop expecting what worked yesterday to work today. We’re near the end and on a steep decline.
But I’m not writing this as a sad story. It is a beautiful story. He lost so much but what was left was pure sweetness — a heartbreakingly fragile, precious sweetness. It is as if all those layers he lost — having a future, autonomy, physical competency — were obscuring a core of pure, expansive and bright love. This isn’t to knock having a future and a full-functioning body: these are great things to have. But when there is no competent-beingness layers left, this unfiltered, sweet, loving core is blindingly bright.
On the last hour of the last day, I put him on my lap and pet him. Ben came and sit next to us. Yet, with very little physical coordination nor energy left, tried to pull himself over so he could sit partially on Ben’s lap too. Eating was no longer important. Drinking, which had been of prime importance due to his kidney failure, was no longer a priority. But edging forward to put his paws on Ben’s lap? That was what he wanted to fight for in his last hour of life.
