Conversations With Sam: "Dying is Such Hard Work"

My last conversation with Sam was just a couple of weeks before he passed away. He had come home from the hospital to die. [Although Thelma would change her mind and send him back to the hospital.] The hospice staff was especially helpful as always. On this morning Cheryl was sitting by his bed both trying to comfort him and draw comfort from his presence. I had stepped in to quietly join her vigil when Sam looked at us and with unusual clarity said, “Dying is such hard work.” Cheryl looked at me and quickly left the room suggesting he might want to talk with me.

As I sat down I wondered about the meaning of his declaration. So I asked, “Sam, what do you mean dying is such work? Are you afraid to die?”

He raised his head and looked at me with an expression of surprise mingled with a hint of confusion. The look said, "Your the preacher boy, don't you know anything?" Instead he lowered his head and reponded “No, you can’t stand where I’m standing and see what I’m seeing and be afraid. I’m in the doorway and it’s so beautiful on the other side. I just can't go through.”

Resisting the burning question of what he was seeing, I asked, “Why Sam, why can’t you go through?”

“I just can’t let go.”

“Let go of what?”

“Them. Who will take care of them, make sure they have food on the table and heat this winter?”

With that statement it all made sense. Sam had lived his life taking care of others, his parents when they were elderly, wounded soldiers during WWII, his orphaned niece and nephews until his war injuries put him back in the hospital, and for the last few decades his own children.

Even with a 98% disability because of injuries to his hands and back, he would trap furs for extra Christmas money and raise a huge garden or a crop of watermelons for back-to-school expenses. He always kept a little cash tucked away for his children’s emergencies.

Sam knew love endures disappointments and difficult times. As he lay dying I discovered love also extends life; it makes it hard to let go. The doctors were amazed how he had lived through so much. For decades he had high blood pressure that often went off the charts, multiple heart attacks, congestive heart failure that filled his chest with fluids, and excruciating pain from spurs on his spine. In spite of it all, he willed himself to live, not because he was afraid to die; he lingered because of his desire to take care of others. Love endures all things; Love marks a life well lived.