Final Gifts

So one of my residents is dying, and my boss suggested we all read Final Gifts, which was written by two hospice nurses. It's all about the messages dying people give, which sometimes their relatives pass off as them just being confused. People near death can see other loved ones in their room who have gone before, and sometimes they're able to communicate that they're ready to leave by saying they need to get their tickets and passport, or one girl said she needed the map.

One of the engineers that replaced my father in Afghanistan just died of a heart attack. They put him on a cargo plane to go to a better hospital and he died on the plane. "Now I don't like being on those planes when I'm well," Dad said. "They're cold and bumpy." They're meant for cargo, but the army culture has such a tough mindset that they're always being used to transport soldiers too. Because really, with all the money we're spending we could afford to have some real transport planes for them. I guess we'll never know if he would have lived if he was more comfortable on the plane.

Then Dad and I started joking about how in the history of the U.S. military, the letter home always says "He died instantly. He didn't even know it was coming." They never say "Oh man, we heard him screaming for an hour, but it was too dark to find him. Finally one of us shot him just to put him out of his misery, but I think he just winged him." It's easy to laugh with him, but really I am so scared whenever he's overseas. He told me that he knows where he is in the rotation and his team will probably be called up sometime next year.

So, when I read the last chapter of Final Gifts, they had a few soul-searching questions to find out how I would deal with my dying or the death of a loved one. How do you deal with stress? "Well, I like to find out as much as possible about a new situation, so I have all the facts," I said to myself. When I was applying to colleges I read every book in our library about the subject to make sure I chose the right place. Then I stopped and started to cry. I realized something. When Dad was away last year I kept planning his funeral in my head, and I'm starting to do it again. What will I wear, will I have to speak, etc. I kept telling myself to stop it, because I was afraid I was being a bad daughter and somehow wishing or calling for his death, and I love him so much his passing would leave a hole so big I could never fill it. Or that I was just being dramatic about having a father in the military. But as therapists are fond of saying, this is a completely natural reaction. I realize now that I was just trying to prepare myself. I've never been to a funeral, let alone a military funeral, and if my Dad had one I'd want to make sure that I didn't do or say something wrong. I was shouting and hating myself so much for doing it that I couldn't hear the message I was sending myself. So now that I know, I can just get a pamphlet from the Army or talk to my Mom about it. I feel like a great worry has been lifted from me.