By Susan Ellis of KeyLifeJourneys  

Friday 1^st October was a fresh crisp sunny windy fall day. One made for scrunching leaves under foot; one made for smelling wood smoke from a cottage chimney. It was a day for filling the lungs with fresh air and expressing gratitude for life and beauty and wonder. A day created with a heightened sense of awareness of the fragility of life, the imminence of death. I had watched the dawn break from Tammy’s 5^th floor living room window.

The passage of time to this point seemed to have been so slow and now it was racing to the end. Suddenly the realization that the time for discussions and questions asked was over. The Tammy I knew was no longer here. Indeed that morning when the day shift Personal Support Worker (PSW) arrived and we together changed the stained sheets for clean and Tammy moaned as we moved her limp body, I had difficulty calling her Tammy. She had long gone. The tired helpless shell that was her earthly body remained, the motor stalled. I massaged a shoulder, I straightened her hair. I talked. I’d been told the last sense to fail was hearing. I played gentle music on the CD player.
 
I stroked and tickled the cat that sensed her world was changing. Indeed there was one more helping in the can in the fridge so I fed Scottie in the morning.

Until you look death in the face you can deny its presence. But when you look at the body of the friend who has been some part of your life for the past 27 years and know there will be no more two-way communication, denial serves no purpose. Tammy said she had quality of life during her dying, she evaluated many days has having been good. Now it was time for a good death.

There are some who will read this and feel I am betraying privacy. How dare I share what seem intimate moments of a life ending with the whole world. Many have used the word courageous when referring to Tammy’s dying time. Many have been inspired by her openness and candour. Indeed she has made for me an MP3 about what the dying person needs from those around. Tammy was about sharing her experience. This is not about manipulated reality TV. This story is painfully authentic and Tammy wanted nothing hidden. When people told her she inspired them it gave her living/dying a greater dimension. This was her death and she could live it how she chose. She had spent most of her life afraid of dying. Through most of the time since her cancer diagnosis that fear had gone. When it came to the palliative phase she took control of how it would be until she had no choice but to surrender. Yes, she feared the letting go, a time she would have no choice but to trust. That time had come.

I took Jane home that morning and returned to my own. I walked around my garden. I renewed myself and returned to Tammy’s apartment. The PSW swabbed out Tammy’s mouth to freshen it. The only movement was from the sucking reflex. The RN arrived to check things out and marvelled at the reality that the reflex is the first to appear and the last to go. She filled some more syringes for me, encouraging me to use them sooner than later so that there would be no breakthrough pain.

Shortly after 4pm the vet arrived and I lifted Scottie off the bed where she lay sleeping. I told Tammy what we were to do. While Scottie was in my arms in the living room the vet injected her in the abdomen. She was a little restless as the drug took effect but happily ate some treats from the vet’s hand. After about ten minutes she fell asleep on my lap. The vet carried her to the bedroom and placed Tammy’s arms around her. I told Tammy that Scottie’s heart was still beating but would be slowing down. The vet and I sat in the bedroom as two lives, which had been so intertwined, wound down. The vet touched Scottie’s chest one more time with the stethoscope. There was no heartbeat. I reminded Tammy that she too could let her heart stop beating now if she chose.

That ritual had been incredibly moving for me. I have been in vet’s offices before now where the euthanization is over in a flash. There was a grace about this one; an honouring of lives. No surprise heart stoppage, just the slow ending of a life well loved. I knew it was preparing me for what would happen soon.

Tammy had a collection of elephants and a collection of soft toy animals. She had been giving them away to all who visited. But before she started I asked if there was one she wanted to keep for her to hold at the end after Scottie had gone. Tammy had immediately selected an ultra soft small cat our friend Mary had brought to her in the hospital following her Whipple Procedure. Its time had come.

Mary joined me a Tammy’s that evening and said her goodbyes. The night shift PSW had not worked since before Tammy slipped into unconsciousness. There was a bond between them and I knew Tammy would have no sense of being alone with her there. I promised to return at midnight to give Tammy another needle and I left.