On Leaving

If there were a contest between Arriving and Leaving, Arriving would probably win hands-down. Arriving is such a hopeful, friendly, upbeat word, appropriate for birth announcements, theatre marquees, and airport monitors.  It suggests the beginning of something, with anticipation the forerunner and delight the expected response.  Of course, not all arrivals are harbingers of good news.  And yet, for this writer's purposes, let's stay with the thought that Arriving does carry with it the potential for something new and exciting to be on the horizon, at least a change of pace.

Leaving, on the other hand, just sounds sad, even when it too may bode good tidings of great joy.  Most of the time, though, Leaving connotes separation, the coming apart of something that was at one time a whole.  Arriving carries with it the promise of what might be.  Leaving carries with it the reality of what was. 

There are protocols for Arriving —being on time or fashionably late, for example.  There are fewer guidelines for Leaving, and it is often a more awkward, confusing process, even resulting at times in the over-stayer who just cannot seem to say goodbye and stays much "too long at the fair".

I arrived on January 19, 1948, and according to the well-documented accounts in my worn and weary baby book, it was indeed a joyous arrival, no doubt about that.  My parents had waited with eager anticipation for nine years, and my arrival brought with it all the initial starry-eyed enthusiasm that new parents exude.  The culmination of my arrival in response to the estimated due date was so neat and tidy.  

But what about due dates for Leaving?  They are often less predictable, especially for that necessary Final Leaving we call Death.

When we acknowledged and celebrated my mother's Final Leaving last July, I was overwhelmed with the awareness that I too would one day be leaving what had become the physical location of my identity.  I knew who I was because I was "here" doing "this" or "that".  With Mother's Final Leaving, it became so obvious to me that all those smaller Arrivings and Leavings, all that doing we call LIFE was just busy work in light of the grander scheme—experiencing LIFE in light of that Final Leaving.  Everything in my life took on a sudden urgency, with a bright light focused on the path ahead of me.  For the first time ever, I could actually see my own Final Leaving, and it loomed larger and closer than ever.

And here are the questions that settled into my newly-shaken spirit:  So, Sarah, how do you want to do the rest of your life in light of your Final Leaving, and bigger and better yet, if you have any say at all, how do you want to do your Final Leaving?   Now that might sound a bit morose at this stage of my aging game, especially given the way I've done most of the smaller Leavings in my life—ultimately, and on the whole, with hope and intention.  I've had my fair share of loss, the Leavings that broke my heart and led me to think I'd never recover.  So, I'm no stranger to Leaving.  But we're talking THE BIG LEAVING here, and it's worth some consideration, I believe.

With Rob's death this past December, I have realized that this Final Leaving is less an event than a process.  Mother's last three years were spent in nursing homes and hospice care, not a surprise, given her 94 years of life.  But Rob was only 67 when he died, and that sounds much too young to be doing the Final Leaving.   Mother experienced nearly three decades of living beyond Rob's.  How can that possibly be enough?  Mathematics would say he didn't have enough time; he didn't get his fair share of living-time. And yet, what I've come to realize is that we all get exactly as much time as we get.  And for Rob, amazingly, 67 years was just enough, as it is, perhaps, for others who struggle with chronic illness.  His father died at 67 under somewhat similar circumstances—a diagnosis without a cure, his refusal of feeding tubes, and the ultimate easing out of a body that had long-ago diminished his spirit.

A diagnosis of Crohn's Disease in 2000 was a welcome explanation for symptoms that had plagued Rob for some years.  The immediate response of the steroids looked for all the world like a magical cure.  We were elated. And then, over time, the reality of the disease made itself known via frustrating side-effects and a significantly compromised immune system.   Fortunately, the most debilitating effects were spread across fifteen years, so it wasn't until the last five that a decade's worth of high-powered medications and declining systems in his body began to take its toll.  It was during these last five years that Rob, with some intention but mostly subconsciously, began to make his Final Leaving.

Throughout the years, we often  talked about what the future held, what he wanted and what he didn't.  He readily confessed that he was not up for trying to prove himself to be someone he was not.  When my father responded to a massive stroke at the age of 61 with an optimism and determination that carried him well into his nineties, Rob admitted that given the same or similar circumstances, he would just curl up in a ball and die.  While I realize that was probably a gross overstatement, I believe it was Rob's way of preparing both of us for his Final Leaving; he would do it his way.   And he did.

Whether due to actual physical impairments, and there were many, or to the resignation he was finding more often in his daily thoughts, he did begin his Final Leaving.  In place of "curling up and dying", he retreated more often than not to the security of his recliner and his paperbacks.  He gave up the passions that had once brought him joy and purpose.  He continued to be the phenomenal listener he had always been, but with responses coming fewer and farther between.  Signs of life were fading.

In retrospect, I see now that he was keeping his word.  He was leaving much like he had lived—in fits and starts, with moments of unexpected LIFE showing up in him that made us all think he was "coming back", only to subside and settle back into a place even further apart from us.  In the most loving and gracious way, I can now see that he was trying to spare us in his typical "don't worry about me" fashion by simply leaving over time.  By the time of his last hospitalization, I believe Rob finally had permission for his waning  spirit to join his declining body and to actually leave, at last. 

No source of the infection?  What?  

An entire medical team of specialists investigating every system in his body and no answer to the riddle, you say?  

A mystery, perhaps?  Or a miracle?

For Rob, it was the "no-answer" he was longing for, and it was the introduction of the sweet release he had already been allowing for months, if not years.  He did not have to fight any more the ravages of the so-called "cures" for his diagnosed disease process.  And most of all, he did not have to be diminished by further attempts to bring him back from a place he actually had been seeking for quite some time. He just didn't want to disappoint all of us who kept trying to cheer him back to life.

And now, many months after his death, it is his undiminished spirit—his Rob-essence that we miss, that we celebrate. He is no longer shrouded in pieces of identity that, in the end, truly do not matter. Sick or well, bright or dull, present or absent, able or disabled—these are mere words used to describe; they become immaterial in the grandest of ways when we consider who he really was and continues to be—simply and magnificently, "our Rob".  

So, what have I learned about this inevitable Final Leaving from "our Rob"?  Well, I come from a line of "long-livers", so I know I have the potential to live a long life. From Rob, I've learned that I too want to be allowed to leave when I'm ready.  

How will I know?   I don't know.   Yet, I believe this, for me, is the beginning of many conversations with friends and family who know "Sarah", and who will know when I am ready to be done with "living" as we know it on this planet.  

I want to be taken seriously when I say things that may be uncomfortable for others to hear.  

I want to be allowed to leave with as much love and delight as that which came so naturally and freely when I first arrived on the scene.  

Will you join me?