As Light and Hope Dim: Dealing with Terminal Illness

Declining health and death have knocked on my door a few times in my life. I have lost our son, my parents, and a close extended family to terminal illness. When other face similar situations, they often ask me about what helped me the most during the longest days of my life. So, here is my input. May it help you, too, see what makes a difference, lifts the burden, and soothes the aching heart.


Talk about Now
When you converse with someone that has a terminal illness or is the caretaker of someone with a terminal illness, inquire about the long term prognosis only occasionally. Then, focus on the current feelings, health, and needs of today, tomorrow, and this week. Most people with a terminal illness are long past feeling sorry for themselves. They would rather share that today they got out of bed themselves before noon and even have had a bath. They want to share that the weather surely seems fine outside and they heard a meadow lark singing. The distant future is bleak, but today holds triumphs and treasures. It is on the nearby they wish to focus.


Do Small Things with Great Love
People gave generously during the times of my deepest stress, but it is the smaller gifts that remain in my mind. I particularly remember the yellow cloth napkins and glass goblets delivered to brighten our family’s Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital when our son was dying of leukemia. I remember the sacrament being brought to my parent’s home the last Sunday before Mom passed away. I remember someone bringing my cousin’s clean and folded wash to her home when she was days away from passing through the veil. It is important to do something, anything, but it doesn’t have to be BIG to be meaningful.

When my father could no longer reach down and trim his toe nails, I began to do it for him. The grandchildren that lived in the home soon because interested in our weekly pedicures and eventually joined in with helping clean Grandpa’s toes, rub lotion on his ankles, and pull socks onto his feet. These “Remember how I helped Grandpa” memories linger in their minds and brought gladness to his face as he received so much personal attention. “It’s my turn this time.” “I rub the bestest, don’t I Grandpa?” “Let me try it. I’m sure I can get his sock over his heel without hurting him.”


Lighten Embarrassing Moments with Humor
Dying isn’t always pretty and you may be present when something quite embarrassing happens around you. Lighten the moment as best as you can and move on. Bodily functions don’t function so well at the end, but still you can help the situation with you light response. Once the line delivering blood to our son burst and got all the adjacent walls and bedding bright red. A visitor said lightly, “Well, looks like it is time to repaint. Where should I start?” Oh, the gentleness of a good friend not being too embarrassed to understand and help.


Welcome the Adjustments that Must Come
There are usually adjustments that come as health declines. A hospital bed will be needed, new handles might appear in the tub, and sanitation might become an issue. Welcome these adjustments and make them a pleasant part of your routine.

When we were in Evan’s hospital room during the bone marrow transplant, we had to wear masks. They were uncomfortable, hot, and made it harder to communicate, but we laughed at how we looked and wore them anyway.

When the hospital bed was necessary for my mother, who passed away from a brain tumor, it was placed in the middle of the kitchen so when she was wakeful, she would also be in the middle of the action.

My sister, who lived in the home with her, continued to paint her finger nails, dress her in bright and colorful nightgowns, and care for her hygiene needs with delicacy. This was a gift both to my mother and to her visitors. She was presented in her best light, an important habit she had sought to have all her life. When she no longer could, others helped her be pretty and smell nice.

Keep Choices
People that are dying slowly lose capacity to do many normal activities. Even then, it is useful to keep choices in their lives. When Evan was in the hospital, for instance, I let him choose between two pairs of “Sunday” socks to wear with his hospital gown. Even at two years old, these choices let him feel somewhat in charge of his situation.


Send Flowers Before
I have learned to send fresh flowers and/or a flowering plant while the person is still alive and can enjoy it. When Uncle Fred was dying of a lung condition, he received an amaryllis bulb already planted and ready to grow. It was the dead of winter and during the last months of his life, it grew and blossomed close by, much to his delight.


Just Go
If you learn about someone’s impending death and you desire a last visit, just go. Don’t worry about what you will say or that you will say the right thing. In the midst of sorrow, no one cares what you say, they just need company and comfort. I remember an understanding friend who came during Evan’s last week. She sat and sang songs to him, one after another and although he was too weary and weak to lift his head from the pillow, when she was done with one and asked if he wanted another, he opened his eyes, smiled, and nodded.

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If you are close to terminal illness, there are several ways in which you can help those who are farther away from the circumstances keep updated on the current situation.


Newsletter, Blog, or Email
My father-in-law’s contribution during Evan’s illiness was to write a monthly newsletter and send it to all his immediate and extended family, and my immediate and extended family and friends. This gift saved me handling a lot of question and answer periods during the especially critical chemo and bone marrow transplant seasons. This gift might more appropriately now include the updating of a blog with content and photos.

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If I could do it again, I would do several things differently.

Take More Photos and Videos
Once a person is gone, they are really gone. While they are here, take frequent formal and informal photos of their daily routines, their rooms, their hospital supplies, and their immediate environment. There are so many changes as things are cleaned up, you leave a hospital, and divide the treasures. Capture the memories with great liberality while there is time.


Embrace Small Requests
As health declines, it is easy to delay small requests by the ill one. For example, just weeks before Dad died, he asked me to take him to the electronics store so he could consider purchasing a new gizmo he has heard about on the news. The challenge of putting his air equipment in the car, getting him into the car, then into the store, and then reversing that routine and returning him home discouraged me from accepting his desire. Of course, I didn’t know at the time how soon he was going to die and comforted myself that I would take him another time, but that time never came. Now I listen carefully and respond more quickly.


With those who have a terminal illness, sensitivity and attention are ever present. It is my opinion that you do what you cant as best as you can. If you goof, embarrass yourself, or even make a mistake, it will not be as bad as having stayed away too long or done too little. Love, care, and treasures the memories you make. These will last past the separation and bring peace to your soul.

©2010 Marie Calder Ricks/www.houseoforder.com

The Resurrection is Sure

Occasionally, my life experiences have taught me that the Spirit will teach and confirm truths to me before I need to use them. This is particularly true about the resurrection. Early one spring Sunday morning, when reading my scriptures alone as a newly married bride, I had a reassuring feeling come over me and I knew, without any doubt, that the resurrection is sure. This troubled me somewhat as I had no reason to need the knowledge at that time. I was young, my friends and family were healthy, and my only significant personal loss had been my maternal grandfather, Ariel Tucker Smith, some seven years before. He had passed through the veil after years of ill health associated with heart disease. It was a very sad and shocking experience to lose him, but time had mellowed the experience and comfort had come to my heart.

Why would such a testimony come at the least expected time? Well, I have come to understand that occasionally we are prepared before, long before we will need certain kinds of spiritual knowledge. That is how it is sometimes. Your testimony is strengthened before it is tested.

It was some seventeen years before that knowledge, sweet as it tasted to me at the time, would be greatly needed during a more critical time of my life.

It was February 1989 when my first cousin, Lucy, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. It was unexpected, troubling, and mind-boggling all at once. We had been close as cousins, being the same age. We both were young mothers with four sons, married and happy, looking forward to raising our children, increasing our education, and serving the Lord. Now she was gone.

Evan, my youngest son, became ill next. It was December 6, 1990 when the hidden affects of illness became apparent. He had leukemia and while we enjoyed his company for almost thirteen more months, eventually the veil thinned and he was gone. It was January 1992.

Even as my mother from afar came to comfort and console our family at that time, her own health was diminishing from a hidden and pervasive brain tumor. The tremors started near the time of Evan’s last birthday and continued until she lost the ability to walk, move her arms, and stay awake for any length of time. It was a silent, painless movement towards the grave, but still the veil beckoned. Mom died February 25, 1993.

Grandma Josephine Smith slipped away shortly thereafter. Whether it was because she had lost her oldest daughter, was yearning herself for a husband gone for 29 years, or because it was just time, she left us just a few months later in May 1993.

Oh, how much I needed the knowledge I had obtained so many years before. The resurrection is sure. The resurrection is sure. It changed each loved one’s passing just a bit, made is sweeter and less bitter. It made it possible to say goodbye more willingly and look forward to the next hello with anticipation.

It was my Grandmother Smith who had first taught me how to believe. All the years of separation from Grandpa and her voice in my ear and conversation to her children always talked of “when” she would be with Grandpa again. There was no “if” in her tone, just “when.”

With that sort of an example it was easy for me to follow the same pattern and teach our four remaining sons about the “when” of the resurrection after Evan’s departure. And so in our home, the language was the same. It was always “when” we would see Evan again.

And when our sons were in far off places on their missions, it seemed that in the most difficult times they were not alone and I came to understand that sometimes the stewardship of a brother is to comfort from the other side of the veil, with more power and capacity that ever could have been done from this side. And so “when” we see Evan again, it will partially be a time of expressing gratitude for his willingness to take a stewardship that has blessed our lives over and over again.

When my dad died in May 2004, it was heart rending. He had been ailing for some time, was 79 years old, and had received the nurturing of his many adult children in different ways. I helped with finances and errands once a week and somehow didn’t see that he was getting along in age and the veil was parting ever so slightly. Mom must have been waiting in joyful anticipation for it had been eleven years, a long time for Dad to be alone without his sweetheart. He never said much about it, but I knew that he knew she would be waiting for him. It was only a matter of time.

Aunt Rachel was the mother of Lucy, my cousin who died unexpectedly in 1989. She was to lose again when another daughter, Sally, died in May 2006 from cancer. It was she who taught me to “be cheerful” as I coped with another personal loss and watched her quietly accept God’s timing in taking her children to a better place. It was never about ungodly sorrow, only about acceptance for her.

In three short years, she would go on to lose her youngest brother, my Uncle Fred, and then only ten days later her own husband, Uncle Clint, both in May 2009. And still, the warmth of her heart provided eternal hope of reunion as she continued to urge “be cheerful.”

There have been others, too, that have left. My favorite visiting teacher, Sister Moulton, who taught me about beauty moving from my face to my heart as I aged. It was she that said, the last hours of her life, “Dying is hard work, Marie, such hard work.” When it was finished, I could see the relief on her countenance. She was done with one existence, only to be glad for the next.

Lindsay, was a young teenager in my world that left, too, gone with a tragic freeway accident. There were the baby girls of two neighborhood families, the twin premature grandsons of another cousin, and my home teacher, David Lay, who left suddenly in an industrial accident. It goes on and on, my need for the testimony that the resurrection is sure.

It is always sad, hurtful beyond belief that those I have come to love are invited to the next stage of their eternity. Oh, I can’t say that it will ever be easy, but I can say, with all my heart and soul, “The resurrection is sure.” My grandmother knew it, my father knew it, and my aunt knew it. And I, too, stand with them in sure spiritual knowledge.

I remember a woman asking me, after she learned that Evan had died, if I had known before that he was going to pass through the veil “too” early. I hadn’t known, but the fear in her eyes told me that she knew already that one of her little ones wouldn’t grow to adulthood and in that knowing she was frightened and yet somehow at peace. How can it be so?

I suppose it is because the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. He gives willingly and He will teach you and continue to teach me about His tender mercies. When we search, reach, and touch this eternal truth, we too, can know that the resurrection is sure. Sometimes we may come to know before we will need the knowledge. At other times, we will have to come to that place of peace afterwards. But always, yes always, we can know. The resurrection is sure!

©2010 Marie Calder Ricks/www.houseoforder.com

Simultaneous to Sequential

My cousin’s young daughter recently passed away from a sudden illness. It was a trauma for our extended family. She was so young, so vibrant, and so eager. Now she is gone. With time, it is getting easier to cope with her loss and I am getting used to the feelings in my heart, but even as I do, I am learning that when you are in a stressful situation or at an unusual place where things are not making much sense, it is best to order your days to do what matters MOST first and let most of everything else “season” for awhile until you feel more healed and interested.

The stresses in your life might come from different circumstances. They might even be from long-ago memories. They might be for reasons you can't exactly explain, but feel too much stress nevertheless. When you realize that stress is making you dysfunctional, it is time for a different, better plan of action.

This plan means you move from more simultaneous living (doing a lot of things all at once) to somewhat sequential living (focusing on one thing, then another, and finally a third).

It seems that when stress increases, our capacity to deal with a lot of different options, projects, and responsibilities diminishes. This is not because we are weak, bad, or otherwise faulty. It is just a fact of life!

It is also important to understand that this personal stress doesn’t have to have a big name, be an important event, or even be publicly known. It can just exist in you. Please recognize it for what it is and adjust your lifestyle, at least temporarily, so you can function at a higher level.

When the going gets rough, tough, and otherwise impossible, may I suggest facing life in this more linear and less spatial fashion. For instance, you awaken one morning and know it is going to be a “hard and heavy” day. If you stay at home, you might have gotten up late and not be your best self. The housework seems endless, the children are out of sorts, and your mind is a fog about whether to start the dishes, get a batch of laundry going, or maybe just climb right back in bed.

If you have managed to get to work, you look at your responsibilities and wonder where to begin, who to make happy first, and how to keep the smile pasted firmly on your face until quitting time. You are present, but you cannot be held accountable for much.

Before you totally give up and quit, may I suggest you list everything that is on your mind. Get it out on three sheets of paper entitled: Must Do Today, Would Like To Do This Week, and Can Wait For Later. Yes, everything that is on your mind should be written down.

Once you have dumped your stresses into these three categories, put the Can Wait For Later list in the back of your planner. (It will be the last list to tackle and will only be brought out when the other two lists are complete and/or someone else shows up to help you out sometime down the road.)

Put the Would Like To Do This Week list at the end of this week’s pages in your planner. (It will be there when and if you have energy to think about it. If not, these things can be faced next week or the next. Again, if anyone volunteers to help later in the week, give them the opportunity to contribute.)

Now, take the Must Do Today list and by adding 1, 2, or 3, etc. to each item of your list, decide the exact order in which you will face your day.

Yes, I know that this list-making is taking a lot of time, but it will save trouble, decision-making, and lots of frustration for the rest of the day and throughout the week. There needs to be some organization in the midst of your soul’s chaos. There needs to be marching orders to pull you along because your mind is not functioning at its best. There needs to be activity to salve the wounds and distract your sorrowing heart.

With a list of what to do and in which order to do it, you now have focus and you now can live more sequentially. This will make it easier to get going and keep going as you address the minimum requirements of life.

Face the first item on your Must Do Today list, tackle it, take care of it, and then go on to the next (between changing diapers, wiping noses, and answering questions, if you have small children around). Then go on to the second item (and answer phones, keep your boss happy, and smile at the customers, if you are at work). Then do the third, fourth, and on and on.

You will get through today more successfully and happier than almost any other method I have tried. Remember, having better, more-able-to-cope days during difficult times means making up three lists and then following them in order. Soon enough your heart will settle down and you can return to a more simultaneous routine! But for now, and even for a few more weeks, let the sorrow sit until it is past. Let the pain soak until it is gone. Let your heart have space to feel and cope, all because you have made three lists and without too much thinking can function on the outside, even you heal on the inside.

© 2009 Marie Calder Ricks/www.houseoforder.com