I was in Japan when my grandmother died and I did not fly home. I don’t think I made the wrong decision. Flying back, after she was dead, wouldn’t make her any less dead. She died with all five of her children by her side, she was hardly alone.
Oma was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in early January of 2017, while I was in Buenos Aries with my twin sisters and boyfriend. We all flew back to New York the next day (as scheduled) and I soon flew to Dallas to spend four weeks with her, mostly sleeping on the couch in her hosptial room. She wanted, desperately to survive until June. She died in April.
I have two very positive memories that stick out to me from my time staying with her while she was sick:
A nurse came in one day, “I’m so sorry, Dr. Coln, I’ve been calling you Mrs. Coln. I wasn’t told you were a doctor. That was so disrespectful.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that, I didn’t tell you either. Mrs. Coln is just fine.” I like thinking about that because it encapsulates her spirit. Oma was never disrespectful but she was largely unpretentious. She took pride in her work as a physician but didn’t regard it as remarkable- though it was remarkable to become a female physician in Texas in 1961- that she’d acquired and MD. She was just doing what she loved, caring for children with science. She was also very proud of her marriage, which lasted 54 years until Grandaddy died. Besides, Dr. Coln was her husband. Shirley Jane was Dr. Kindberg.
The other is a bit sillier. Marijuana was already legal in Colorado and a few other states in 2017 and we managed to smuggle a few chocolate bars to her. My Oma was deeply religious and didn’t drink liquor (only wine— lots of wine) until after my granddad died. She had never tried a drug. But I offered her 10 milligrams and said it helps with pain and hunger and, doubled over in bed and skinny and shivering, she happily took it. About 45 minutes later, my mom and I were about to leave to pick up my aunt from the airport and my grandmother, happily buzzed from the THC, asked if she could come along and, also, could she perhaps have a snack first?
We drove along the highway and my Oma laughed and pointed at the lights, it was like she was back. I could have cried. After that, whenever she had a particularly painful episode she would ask if there were any “special chocolates” lying around.
I have a few other, sadder, scarier, in the trenches sort of memories of that time, about watching a loved one, a woman who raised you die. Memories about shame and regret and sadness and illness. But those feel disrespectful to share here and now.
And anyway, what I am thinking about, what I want to talk to you about, is why we disconnect from death so much.