Living Ready

I learned to “live ready” very early in life due to having a tendency to form blood clots in my legs and abdomen. From age 18, these would travel periodically into my heart and lungs, bringing me close to death.

There were also many hospital stays as my intestines seemed to have a grudge against me. Adhesions would form, sticking my intestines together. This caused numerous surgeries, which in turn caused more adhesions to form. I was in the worst of all emergencies at age 35, when blood clots had severely damaged my lungs, once again. However, a newly invented surgery “saved the day,” as regards to having any blood clots enter my heart and lungs. I began to get better—and granted there was much prayer. Many people were pulling for me to be able to live and raise the three sons God had given me and the nuns of the hospital’s Pastoral Care Department were with me, “often.”

I did well after my vena cava vascular surgery. Amazingly well.

Today, many years later, I look back with amazement having been given decades of life. My children are adults and I have grandchildren. My husband and I have celebrated many anniversaries—and once our “nest” was empty, I finished my education, having felt a call to prepare for ministering to sick and dying people. After gaining a master’s degree, I attended Clinical Pastoral Education in a teaching hospital, in order to gain Board certification as a chaplain. My life experience has prepared me for helping people who are facing grave uncertainties.

In my teens, twenties and thirties, I learned to “live ready.” Ready to die. It was often on my mind, yet I was not anxious. Afraid, yes, as it was “the unknown.” Most of us want certainty . . . which life does not afford us.

Looking back on our lives, Gary and I realize that because of my many hospital stays, both of our career paths changed to health care. He went back to Boise State University majoring in radiology, and recently retired as a MRI technologist.

My work, in part, these days includes having “Thoughtful Conversations” with individuals helping them understand the importance of making “end of life” choices. This includes creating a will, as well as to carefully document what care they do or do not want when death is pending.

While I am with people who are in hospice or hospital settings, knowing they will die soon, I help them look at what else they want in life. Actor Gary Sinise wrote in his book, Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service, a premise to which I adhere, “Each person on this planet is here for a purpose . . . That purpose is to care for other people and to help this world become a better place through service to others.”

In the past, within my work as a hospice chaplain, most patients I saw were given very little time to finish their life’s journey. Part of that work included looking at their relationships, and when possible, making peace with those in which there was still pain. We worked on forgiveness and releasing the toxicity of resentment and bitterness, where this existed. In many cases, we prayed together, making the path to healing through forgiveness much easier.

Another way of getting ready came through thinking about “What one thing feels unfinished?” This took time for most people. They needed to reflect on and identify that “one thing.” In my work within a hospice setting there were a number of instances in which the person lived long enough to meet that goal. But even working toward it finds a person dying with the joy of doing something worthy of their last hours or days on earth. And they die in peace.

Another aspect of living ready comes as a person ponders, “What happens after death?” As a chaplain, I see clearly that most people need love and acceptance; advice is best used with great caution. Listening is a skill a chaplain must develop to truly be effective with patients. Sometimes people, when at death’s door, ask questions like,” How can I be ready to die?” Or “I’ve not been religious. Help me know how to be ready to meet God.”

My response is to “Just talk to God. Tell Him about your struggle with wondering: ‘Is God real, or not?’ Tell God you want to see Him and talk with Him in person. Ask, ‘What do I need to do in order for that to happen?’ Then listen.”

Life is a mystery. Not one of us knows how much time we will have on earth. My life experience revealed the fact that a huge advantage comes through “Living Ready” for death. If possible, ignoring the inevitable is not something to do right up to the end. We may not be conscious at that point.

You may want to separate death from life, preferring not to think about this journey’s end; but there is no doubt at all that death is part of each person’s life. And it can be a blessing due to becoming a time in which the comfort and peacefulness of faith and remembrances can bring a meaningful transition.