Death's Agonizing Edge

Life asked Death, 'why do people love me, but hate you'? Death responded, 'Because you are a beautiful illusion, while I am a painful truth'!

(May 8th, 2014, as my mother lay dying for four long, agonizing days, my dad and I shared many special moments with her before death finally came to claim her; allowing her last breath to be released. She left this world a little better for having been in it 84 wonderful years.) 

I had the privilege of caring for my grandmother, father in law, mother, and father before they passed on. Death, like birth, comes on its own time frame, is messy, painful, agonizing at moments, and every ones experience is wonderfully unique. 

My father worked at Thiokol for 26 years. He started working there as the Program Manager for the first stage of the Minuteman Missile System, eventually being made the Manager of Manufacturing Engineering. Later he was promoted to the head of Safety Engineering for all of Thiokol. He was actually suppose to make the call to not allow them to fly in January of 1986 when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, but his voice was silenced due to the fact that this was an event that was going to happen regardless of the safety issues that were known. It was another sacrifice for the Illuminati elitists that run our country. My father couldn't have stop it, and he regretted that fact until the day he died. He loved his career working hand in hand with NASA making the rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle. After the explosion of Challenger however, my father no longer wanted to be a part of that organization. He retired early much to the dismay of the plant managers, but was convinced to come back on as a private consultant for a year. Then, the PEPCON plant in Henderson, Nevada exploded. My father was the lead investigator on the PEPCON explosion. He made a lot of money consulting for them. He worked for PEPCON for two years, solving the mystery of what created the deadly explosion, which killed three people. My dad loved his work with a passion few people are lucky enough to have for their jobs. Work was play for him. 

In June of 2016, Thiokol was testing the next generation of rocket boosters, and they asked my dad to come witness this test. He was the last surviving person from the beginning of  the rocket booster era. He was thrilled to be back after 30 years of retirement to see his life's work pushing the boundaries of exploration in space. He was able to met with astronauts once again, something he had done quite often in his line of work. Only this time, many of them were more excited to see him and hear his stories of past adventures with preparing the rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle launches. This picture was taken June 28th, the day before my father was to meet with doctors at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in SLC, UT. He was living on his own still at 89, with the help of my oldest son and his wife who lived in my fathers basement, helping him ever since my mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2014. Now my father had cancer too. Only his type of cancer was extremely rare. HCI was the only place in UT where he could be treated. My sister and I both live in the SLC valley. My dad moved into her home thinking it would be temporary only to discover cancer treatments are far more damaging and devastating than the actual cancer.

June 29th, 2016 my dad is meeting his first great-granddaughter from my family, Molly May Garrett; she's only 9 days old. 

Dad had been living on his own, fixing his own food, doing yard work, had a lot of energy for someone his age, and overall, had a good quality of life. He was happy. Sadly, we will never know what his life would have been like had he chose not to under go cancer treatments like my mother. Unfortunately, Cancer treatments would change all those things about my dad within days of starting the drugs. They literally sucked the life right out of him. It was heartbreaking to watch my father be put through unnecessary pain and discomfort from the experimental treatments and many biopsies due to the fact that this type of cancer was so rare. On May 25, 2016, he was diagnosed with peripheral T-cell lymphoma with large T-cell transformation, which acts like myocsis fungodies. In other words, this is an extremely rare form of aggressive cancer. The survival rate is usually less that 12 months from diagnosis to death due to its aggressive nature and lack of response to treatments. My dad was hopeful he would be an exception. He wasn't. 

This picture of my dad was taken about one month later in July, after receiving many immunotherapy treatments and a few radiation treatments. He is a shell of his former self. Both treatments had devastating side effects, which zapped his strength, stole his memories, impaired his speech, slowed his cognition, and basically changed everything about him over night, robbing him of his precious freedom to think and care for himself, forcing him to use a walker, or a wheel chair, because he didn't have the strength, or the balance, to walk on his own very far. This was his path. I recognize that he chose to go down this dark, despairing road that would eventually end with his agonizing death. If I could have spared him the pain of these choices, I would have. Sadly, it was not be. 

Our last selfie together. On Thursday, January 12th, 2017, I was called to my dad's bedside. I found two very old tee shirts in his closet from my youth. These shirts brought back happy memories of exciting adventures we had together in Southern Utah. It was fitting for us to both wear them while he transitioned from this world to the next for this was definitely the beginning of the end of the road for my dad. He was dying. His body was slowly shutting down. His death would only take two days, but, they would be agonizing and torturous days, not peaceful and calm ones like my mothers. He would suffer greatly for his so called 'sins'. My father had a lot of fear for what was waiting for him on the other side of the veil. He was certain our mother was in the Mormon version of Heaven he so desperately believed in and wanted to attain. Yet, he was not certain about where his soul would end up. He shared many fears about death with me over the two and a half years after my mother passed away. I was a safe person to share those intimate thoughts with because I believe there is no judgment from an angry God waiting on the other side of Life. He liked my reassurance all would be fine even though he couldn't really believe in it himself. 

In those 48 hours while waiting for death to come, we comforted our dad as best we could. My father struggled for breath. Every breath was a fight. It sounded like his lungs were literally melting and turning into goo, which came pouring out of his mouth continuously. We would have to change the pad under his head every hour. He was on Hospice, but due to an unfortunate decision he didn't receive the medication he needed in a timely fashion. We were giving him morphine drops, but because of the constant mucus and puss oozing from his mouth, those drops were not getting into his system. He was in horrific pain, and there was nothing we could do about it until the hospice nurse finally came back just two hours before his death. Death was very unkind to my father for whatever reason, this too was his path. 

 I gave my father Reiki treatments as often as I could, especially over his chest, which was just working so hard to keep the air flowing through his lungs above the fluid that was filling them up. There was a point when I was alone with him with the door shut, watching him suffer in pain, standing on the edge of death, but unable to fall over it into that sweet, peaceful abyss, just hovering in between worlds, this was agony for me to witness. I cried out loud for my mom to please come to us and help him cross over. 'Not yet, however, it will be over before this day is done', was her reply to my heart.
(After the funeral, at the reading of dad's will, I would understand his agony in death much better. He suffered not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well while trying to leave this world behind. That journey will be shared in another post. Writing about this experience with my father is one of my ways for healing the pain in my eclipsed heart that has come from his illness, eventual demise, and shameful will and trust.)

We did every thing we could think of to help ease his mind, soul, and body through this transition from life to death. We sang to him his favorite church hymns even though our voices were rough and weary; we sang, hoping it would help him let go. Finally, the hospice nurse came about 4 pm. When she saw him she was so sorry. She said, 'This man is suffering! This is not what hospice patients are suppose to look like. He is in pain, and we need to fix it so he can let go. Sometimes when people are in great pain like he is, it keeps them stuck here, fighting to live. Also, I have never seen someone with this kind of liquid flowing out of their mouth. That is not a normal bodily fluid.' She suggested we change my dad's position. We rolled him onto his back instead of letting him lay on his side. He grimaced in pain as we moved him to his back, which made it so he could no longer expel this ghastly, smelly fluid from his lungs. She ordered a new kind of medication to help ease his pain, however, it would not be necessary. Dad would leave us before it would arrive, and take effect. 

Dad finally passed on about 6:30 in the evening on January 14th, 2017 after a long hard fight to let go. It was a privilege to serve him in those final hours, even though I would be devastated by his actions just 13 weeks earlier on October 13th, 2016. It took a lot of work to heal the holes in my heart from his unfortunate decisions before his death. But, I am healing, and that is what is important. I have not allowed dad to enter my space since his death. Mom's presence has been welcomed on many occasions, but my father's presence is yet to be accepted. Maybe one day, I will be at a point where I can contact him, and be at peace with his presence. That day is not here yet. I still have a lot of work to do for healing my wounded heart. What I know for sure is this, death and life dance together in perfect synchronicity. In reality, both are a beautiful illusions. I believe consciousness continues on. We do reap what we sow, and will face the consequences of our choices, and actions, in our life; but, I also believe in reincarnation. I believe we get many chances to learn and grow from a mortal experience, each time hopefully gaining more wisdom than the last. Death is not a tragedy. Not living up to your full potential in life, that is the real tragedy. At least for me, that is the take away lesson from witnessing four of my loved ones leave this earthly plane. Death is not to be feared. Living unconsciously, of that you should most definitely be afraid!  

Namaste!

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