Thursday, May 10, 2007

Dying well . . . and helping others

Long ago and far away, I was a coworker of Laurie Smith Anderson's on -- may God rest it -- the Baton Rouge (La.) State-Times, the city's defunct afternoon newspaper.

And now may God rest her, granting her eternal life where cancer exists no more.

Laurie died Wednesday morning -- it was colon cancer -- but she died well, her husband and children nearby. She died well because she spent her last months and days helping people by doing what she did best -- writing.

It takes guts to face death and find peace as it draws ever nearer. It takes more guts to describe what that is like.

Those final columns are
here. Read them.

Here's a sample, from the second to last piece she ever wrote:


My favorite scene from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” describes the boys sneaking in to watch their own funeral. It’s probably such a memorable part of Mark Twain’s classic tale because of a universal desire to peek in on the day when people gather to say nice things about us.

Long ago I had decided that I wished to be cremated with my ashes scattered in a place special to my family and me. I also decided that I wanted to have a memorial service rather than a traditional funeral.

My desire for a memorial service may have originated at one that my husband and I attended for Dr. L.E. Stringer in Greensburg. It was an uplifting ceremony, featuring a few of his favorite songs performed by a barbershop quartet. Friends told stories — some quite humorous — about his life.

Several months ago, when LSU palynologist John Wrenn died of cancer, friends lightened his service with anecdotes from his life, including tales of his adventurous scientific expeditions to Antarctica and other remote corners of the world.

In a display photo, Wrenn and three colleagues stuck out green, yellow, blue and red tongues dyed from Popsicles.

His daughter read a poem her father loved. A neighbor played the bagpipes. And, at the ceremony’s conclusion, a Marine played taps. It was a warm, meaningful service.

I particularly liked the idea my friends Elizabeth and Ted Fischer employed when their 23-year-old daughter Kristen died six weeks ago. They asked family and friends to wear bright clothes so that when Kristen looked down on the service, she would see a spring garden. If winter puts us in the mindset of death, then spring is a perfectly fitting time to remind us of life’s grand rebirth, with glorious pinks, yellows and lavenders pushing up from under the brown leaves.

For a long time I’ve known that when I die I wanted something celebratory rather than sad for my sendoff.

Still, when it became apparent that my death from cancer was drawing near, my husband at first felt reluctant to ask me about specifics for the service.

Mary Maloney, my hospice nurse, tells me that it’s not uncommon for families, confronted with a terminal illness, to treat the subject and related planning as taboo.

“Death is like a pink elephant sitting in the middle of the room” that nobody acknowledges is present, she said.

When my husband finally posed questions to me about what I would like done at my memorial service, it opened a new line of communication for the two of us and eventually for the rest of the family. We needed to talk as a group about my impending death. This provided a vehicle.

When family chitchat in my bedroom turned to the subject one Sunday morning, family members made suggestions, some of which I embraced. I explained that I wanted my service to be a celebration of my life, not the mourning of my death.

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