What My Mother Taught Me About Preparing for the Death of a Parent

Part 2 of 2

One afternoon during my mother’s final weeks, I put on my spiritual director’s hat and asked if there was anything happening inside her that she wanted to talk about. She started to review her physical complaints. I tapped her chest gently and said: “No. In here.” She considered this. She was good, she assured me. And she really was. There was a calm in her that I hadn’t seen before — and something else underneath it that I can only describe as quiet anticipation. She seemed genuinely excited that she was finally going to meet face to face the Jesus and Mary she had turned to her entire life. Thrown herself at, would be the more accurate phrase. Some of her crosses had been heavy ones. Too much to carry alone. She had not carried them alone, and she knew it.

What followed in those weeks was a masterclass in dying well. I am not being dramatic. Here is what she taught me — and what I would offer to you, if you are walking toward this chapter with one of your own parents.

Acknowledge the elephant in the room.
You both know what is coming. Not dancing around it is a gift to both of you. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is uncomfortable. But the conversations that open once that reality is sitting in plain daylight between you — those are where the real ones happen. My mother and I had conversations in those eight weeks that we had never managed in forty years of weekly dinners. Do not let discomfort rob you of that.

Follow their lead.
Mom’s body was shutting down but her mind was entirely intact and her social preferences were non-negotiable. She wanted visitors. She wanted the good champagne. She wanted the pastries from the Italian bakery, not the grocery store — a distinction she would have made on her deathbed, and essentially did. Honor what they love while they can still receive it. There’s no time like the present for planning.

Mom put me in charge of the funeral Mass and she had very clear ideas. Too dry. Not upbeat enough. I can’t see a choir doing that justice. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, and the gift of a little runway was that she got to be part of it. My dear friend Father Gerry offered to say the Mass when the time came. He had a long conversation with Mom several weeks before she died, and when the homily came, it was so specific to her faith journey that it surprised even those of us who thought we knew her completely. That is what preparation makes possible.

Pay attention to the setting.
You never know what will be most meaningful to the person dying. Music. Temperature. Scent. The food that makes sense for where they are. These things matter more than most of us expect. Pay attention. Ask. Adjust.

The caregivers are the lifesavers.
If your parent is dying at home, the quality of care is everything — for them and for you. This is harder to arrange than it should be. The agencies are not always what they promise. Get the word out through every network you have. Work it. The right people exist. Finding them takes persistence and it is worth every bit of it.

Don’t be stingy with the I love you.
This is not the time to sort out old grievances unless the person dying wants to air something out. What they need — what most of us need at the end — is to know that their life mattered and that they were loved. Say it specifically. Not just I love you, but I love you because. Give them the particular reasons. Name what they gave you. They will carry it with them.

Before my mother died, she left a letter to her children and grandchildren which we were told to open after she died.  It said something to the effect of:

Don’t mourn for me. I have had a wonderful life. You were all there for me when I needed you. I am proud of each and every one of you.

That is not a letter you write at the end of a life. That is a letter you earn over the course of one.

Someone said something to me after my mother died that I have not been able to put down since. No matter how good your relationship with a parent was — no matter how beautiful the final days and weeks — you are losing the only person who has been a witness to your entire life. Every version of you. The grace-filled parts and the parts still being worked on. The words said in anger that you knew, somewhere underneath, they could absorb — because they could, because they always did, because that particular safety is something only a parent provides. They saw all of it. They loved you anyway — not as an achievement, not because you earned it, but as a given. As the most basic fact of their world.

There is no replacing that witness. There is no substitute for being known that completely by someone who chose, every single day, to stay. My mother did that. For 68 years she was my witness.

I am her daughter. I am taking notes.

Robin Kencel is a certified spiritual director, author, and founder of the Aging with Purpose Initiative.