No One Has To Die Alone

No One Has to Die Alone gets death and dying out of the closet and on to the Dining Room Table.

I read Dr. Lani Leary’s book in 2012 when my Aunt Judy was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
It’s is one of those books you read and know you are forever changed.
This book will empower you to support a loved one at the end of their life.

Shortly after my Aunt was diagnosed I really wanted to call her but I really didn’t know how to handle such a delicate conversation.

What do I say? What don’t I say? Should I be positive or realistic. Will she want visitors? What do I write on the card and what do I say to my cousin?

This was unfamiliar territory I was so vulnerable. I kept asking myself what would I want?

I wonder if you will KNOW how to handle this situation if the time comes. Maybe you already have.

Dr. Leary has worked for over 30 years as a psychotherapist. She's a Chaplain in the intensive care unit of a hospital, a counselor in 8 hospices across the US and is a professor of Death Studies at George Mason University, and a researcher at the National Cancer Institute. Her career in this lifelong work was inspired from her own personal story of losing her mom at the age of 13.

No one talked to her about her mother’s illness. She didn’t see it coming. Her mom was ill that's all she knew. Then one day she walked into her mom’s bedroom and she was gone. Not being there for her mom and the absence of information haunted her for years.

She has supported thousands of people in the dying process and has been at the bedside of over 500 people who have died.

She says the best way we can support our loved ones is by showing up in peaceful state and just offering them our presence. There is a quote in the book by Jon Kabat-Zinn that says “Just having a caring environment through which you can be heard and accepted for who you are can be profoundly healing” Be a good listener---let them tell their stories. We must be able to take their lead. What do they want to talk about?

WHAT THE DYING ARE MOST afraid of isn’t dying. It is being emotionally abandoned. If you can say to your loved one we’ll do this together. To really to see that when all hope is gone there are still things we can hope for such as a pain free death, personal relationships resolved, a death with dignity.

I went to see my Aunt Judy before she passed. I knew it was going to be one of the last times I saw her. I massaged her feet with some cream, they were swollen and so sore. In the book Dr. Leary tells us that they like soft sounds and soft touches. We talked about her granddaughters, her treatments, her favourite colours and TV Shows. I brought a bouquet of flowers. I’m so glad that I did. I held her and told her I loved her.

There are two main things that I gained from reading this book.

I felt comfortable to be able to “lean into” supporting my Aunt Judy at the end of her life and being in that vulnerable place with her. I also gained a new perspective on dying and grief. A perspective that helps me cope with the reality of death and that my own aging parents will one day no longer be here and that there are people on the other side waiting for us.

There is a quote from the book I’d like to share by Elizabeth Kubler Ross - a psychiatrist, author and pioneer in death studies. She says, “When I die I’ve told my children to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I have graduated. For me death is a graduation".

Losing a loved one is terribly painful and it’s really nice to know how we can best show up to support them in the dying process.

No one has to die alone.