Laughing through the tears beside a loved one’s death bed

My sister asked if I had time for a call one November day. She needed to update me on our dad’s health. Daddy had been hospitalized since late August; a stroke had sent him looking for care, and after several days in the hospital, another stroke left him seriously debilitated. Our mom had been spent months at his side. The entire time he was in the ICU, Mom slept on a stiff hospital couch near his bedside. She resumed sleeping in her own bed after Daddy transferred to a rehabilitation hospital, but a significant portion of her day was still spent near him.

She lived out “till death do us part.”

Dad had been on a ventilator for months, and although we hadn’t seen much change, we had often been told his health would improve. This was in 2019, before COVID-19 left us all with opinions about ventilators. In mid-November, a nurse leveled with Mom: Dad wasn’t coming back from this. We needed to make some tough decisions.

I wept after Cheryl called to tell me. That week I was already headed to Florida, where most of my family lived, to serve as the honorary maid-of-honor in my dead sister’s childhood best friend’s wedding. (That merits an essay of its own.) The trip would now include gathering with my mom and siblings to say goodbye as Daddy came off of life support.

We surrounded his hospital bed and spoke kindly to him as the medical team removed the ventilator. We expected Dad would go pretty quickly, based on what his team had told us. Some of his favorite songs played from one of our iPhones—a mix of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other classics, if I recall correctly. Mom, Cheryl, Chad and I told Dad we loved him and that it was OK to let go.

Death isn’t always so easy or swift.

Eventually we realized this was going to be a longer process than we anticipated. We moved from Dad’s bedside to the chairs in his hospital room. Chad pulled out a deck of cards, and we spent hours playing—laughing, teasing each other, periodically checking in on Dad’s progress or lack thereof. A nurse told us later in the day that it encouraged her to hear so much life and joy in the midst of our sadness.

Years later, I found a mirror of that joy in “We All Want Impossible Things” by Catherine Newman.

Edi and Ash have been best friends since preschool. Although they went to different high schools and colleges, the women have turned to each other consistently throughout their lives. Now Edi is dying of cancer, and none of the recommended hospices near her Manhattan home have space for her.

“‘A wait list?’ Jude (Edi’s husband) had said. ‘Do they understand the premise of hospice?’ We pictured an intake coordinator making endless calls, crossing name after name off her list. ‘Yes, yes. I see. Maybe next time!'”

Ash suggests that Edi move to a hospice near Ash’s home in Western Massachusetts. Jude reluctantly agrees. It seems like the best option for their family; he can’t provide Edi the care she needs, and watching his mother actively die could traumatize for the couple’s young son. The hospital projects Edi has only a couple of weeks to live, but those weeks won’t be spent within their walls. Off to Massachusetts she goes.

But much like my dad, Edi’s death doesn’t play out on the expected timeline. After a couple of days waiting to die in the rehab hospital, we transferred Daddy to a hospice in St. Augustine. Mom told him he could let go now; he was out of Green Cove Springs, a town he resented, and back in the city he called home.

In Newman’s novel, weeks pass by, with Ash soaking in moments with her best friend while growing more attached to Edi’s hospice neighbors, as well. Meanwhile, Ash is also navigating her disintegrating marriage, her youngest daughter’s frequent school absences, her eldest daughter’s mystifying emoji usage and an awful lot of sexual encounters.

Dad moved to hospice the morning of the wedding, stubbornly refusing to let go while we looked on. Frankly, we shouldn’t have expected less from a man who was always convinced of his opinions. He’d been sure that Mom should go first because he wasn’t sure how she’d manage without him. My siblings and I would roll our eyes. We knew Mom would manage. Dad wouldn’t do the same if he was the last parent standing.

We had started to joke that he could still be Mom’s date to the wedding that Saturday, “Weekend at Bernie’s” style. Mom still wanted to see my sister’s friend walk down the aisle, and I remained committed to standing at that friend’s side in my late sister’s place.

When Mom arrived at the wedding venue, I shared a realization. “Hey! If I ever get married, I’ll be able to elope because Dad won’t be there to complain about it,” I said. Mom laughed and encouraged me. We have a dark sense of humor.

As Edi’s death approaches, Ash wrestles with ideas about what might come afterward. Her spirituality is more vague and hopeful than tied to any one religion. When Ash requests her family spend a moment before dinner thinking of Edi, she closes her eyes and pictures her best friend’s face. “Then I picture peeling pink hearts from a sheet of stickers, pressing them onto Edi’s cheeks. Is this what praying is? I honestly have no idea.”

“We All Want Impossible Things” is the most realistic portrayal I’ve read of this kind of death. You know it’s near, and it’s devastating. You’re grieving the impending loss. But somehow you’re also supposed to make dinner and scoop the litter box and continue with life’s mundane tasks.

I was back home in Birmingham by the time Daddy died. The hospice called Mom in the middle of the night, and my brother drove with her to see Dad for one last time. I woke up to a text message explaining all of this—and then, for some reason, I felt compelled to go to work, pick up my laptop and get some things done before I returned to Florida for the funeral.

Grief can take many funny, expected, heartbreaking forms. Newman writes from experience: the death of her own best friend, Ali Pomeroy. Books can remind us that we aren’t alone. I’ve laughed and sobbed along with Newman’s words as she gives new life to her loss. Sometimes we need both company and a good laugh for the journey.

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