Readiness cannot be known.
As a trained pastoral counselor and chaplain I worked in hospitals where the hurried and busy medical staff knew all the answers and had all the cures and all the medications. I felt useless because all I could do was listen and stay present. I learned two things. First, I was very much needed when a family or patient was sitting by terrified and knowing nothing. I could listen, and that presence counted alongside all the data.
Next, I learned about humility. It is not self-abasement as if I were worthless. Nor was it self-aggrandizement as if I were the only true healer around.
Humility is being right-sized—not too big and not too small.
All I could do before, after, and sometimes during a dying was: Be present, pray a little, respect whatever cultural traditions families or religions kept, keep silence, listen, and wait. Yes, touch is the last sense to go when anyone dies, so, if you are the only one present, gently touch (not grasp and hold onto) a hand. You will know when to let go. There may or may not be any last words.
Thou shalt never say: “I know just how you feel.”
You do not know how anyone feels even if you have been in similar circumstances. You do not know. It is emotionally intelligent not to assume or judge any feelings correct or incorrect.
Nor do you know exactly when a person will die or how. Some people prefer to die alone. It’s okay to ask. Many people stay alive to take care of their loved one whom they assume will be devastated by their death. They will. And they will be all right.
Many people die just as they have lived. It’s a matter of personality, the way you are. My mother put on a fresh coat of lipstick, turned on her side, and said to her granddaughter: “This won’t take long, darling.”
* * * *
I have laughed at the parable story Jesus tells about the Sower who sows seeds wherever he goes. The seed falls on many kinds of soil. Some of it bears fruit, some not so much. The Sower keep on sowing anyway. So resist getting all mixed up in discerning what kind of soil you might be.
In Israel, most of the soil is rough and unfriendly anyway. The anawin (peasants and poor people) had the worst soil to plant, the least likely soil to bear fruit to sustain and provide food for the hungry. This parable has an economic meaning. It is written to the poor, encouraging them that God, the Sower, is still sowing no matter what. It is also an admonishment to the wealthy to be humble, share and not hoard.
How can you be a sower?
* * * *
You never know as much as you are sure you know. Be humble. Listen. Hope against hope. Assume nothing. Dying remains a mystery and readiness unknowable.
Honest to God, I once sat with a man who was dying. The family had said their farewells. It appeared as if this man was waiting for something more. I asked. He said: “I had to wait for the priest to come anoint me. I can’t die until he gets here.” I nodded and I will not tell you my thoughts. We waited. Finally, the priest came running down the hall. I could hear his steps, his panting breath. He rushed into the room, fished a stole from his pocket along with a small vial full of anointing oil. The patient was tightly blanketed lying in his bed. The priest fumbled to loosen the blanket at the bottom of the bed, reached under and, honest to God, anointed the man’s big toe with and the proper Latin words. The man sighed with contentment and died. Honest to God.
How little we know—how very very little.
