Chosen Family

My first impression of Anne was that she’d lived a hard life. Her gaze was cautious, her voice deep and gravely from inhaling 40 years of cigarettes. A blood cancer was impacting her kidneys and rather than agree to dialysis, Anne chose hospice. She lived with two cats, had no children, and hadn’t had any relationships with “damn men” in a long time. A couple of friends checked on her periodically. Moving around her small apartment, even with a walker, was more and more difficult. She’d fallen early one afternoon, serving up the cats their dinner, and had been on the floor awhile. A nursing home was the next option unless she could find a place to stay. 

I was the director at Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying then, a non-profit end-of- life home for people like Anne who didn’t have anyone to care for them nor the means to pay for a place to stay. With a small paid staff and a robust community of seventy volunteers, we offered a safe place for people to live out their last days. Anne waved us off at first. “I’ll think about it. I need to find someone to take my cats.” Another fall, another call from Anne’s hospice agency hoping we had a bed available at Abode. We did. Arrangements were made for the cats.

I asked Anne early on about how she wanted to spend the rest of her time. She liked needlepoint and woodworking, though she didn’t have the stamina to do the latter. She hoped to spend time with her family if they would visit. She wasn’t sure they would. Family relationships can surely be complicated. This one was. 

Anne longed for connection and at the same time, had good reasons to be wary of new people. She didn’t trust us at first. She didn’t trust much of anyone except her father, who’d died earlier in Anne’s life. He was the one person who truly championed her and from whom she felt love. She kept us at arm’s length for a while. I got the sense that Anne was pretty used to not getting much of what she asked for, so she’d stopped asking. 

Early in her stay at Abode, I asked Anne if she’d be willing to sit in front of my camera for an interview. Hesitant at first, she agreed and one conversation turned to many. She wondered aloud if talking about her experiences could help other people. We made a deal, she and I, that I would capture what I could along the way in the months she had left, with the intention of teaching other people about how she lived into her ending. She said, too, to several of us that she wanted to be remembered; she wanted her life to matter. 

So you can get a sense of her, here’s a minute and twenty-six seconds of Anne:

In her first weeks, we Abodians spent time getting to know Anne, asking about what she liked to eat, her favorite shows, what we could do to help her wind down her life and be present to what was unfolding. After a lifetime of no’s, Anne began to hear yes, over and over: “Yes, you can smoke your Parliaments on the porch,”  “Yes, we will get you the ingredients for a King Ranch Casserole so you can teach us how to make this heart-stopping Southern delicacy.” “Yes, we will watch Aquaman with you.” “Yes, Betsy will write Jason Momoa on your behalf and see if he’ll stop by.” He did not. We certainly tried. 

Anne began to trust and open. We volunteers and staff listened and listened, eventually tag-teaming because it was as though a geyser of Anne’s inner world had been uncapped. With new found attentive listeners—no kidding—she talked for hours. So much to be said and we all knew time was short. 

One morning, Anne, who’d done stints as a bleached blonde and sassy redhead, decided she wanted a haircut. In her baritone Parliament-tinted gravelly voice, she told us, “I want a buzz. Cut it all off. Can you find someone to do that? I need to make things easy.” Sometimes the need for outward changes is signaling inward changes. Whatever the reason, yes, we could find someone to do that. Hannah not only brought her clippers, she decided to cut her hair in solidarity. Suzette, too. Word began to spread about Anne’s buzzcut party at 10:30 on Wednesday morning. It became an Event. Volunteers, staff, and some people from Anne’s hospice team came to stand witness. AC/DC played in the background. We applauded when the do’s were done. Anne sat on the little couch taking in the scene, people spilling out the doors onto the porch. They were all there for her. She couldn’t believe it. 

Anne mentioned to one of the tag team listeners that she’d decided to be cremated but didn’t have an urn. Simply a passing comment, except at Abode, ears were attuned. A couple of weeks later, a volunteer brought her husband to meet Anne. They carried with them a beautiful hand-hewn wooden box, made by the husband, intended to hold Anne’s ashes. If she wanted it, it was hers. Shaking her head she told them, “I can’t believe you would do this for me.” As she experienced more moments of unconditional love, I could feel Anne’s questioning of her own worthiness erode. Anne and I had an interview later that week. She asked, “You see the box?” She ran her hands over the top of it as she talked. “Oh, that is just amazing. That somebody would take the time. It’s rough-cut oak. Do you know how long it takes to take a rough-cut oak and make it that smooth?” “A long time I imagine,” I replied, thinking to myself what a perfect metaphor. “I’m thinking that I could send half my ashes to my mother. I’d like the other half to be in this box, to stay here at Abode.”  

Easter was upon us and someone brought some fancified bunny ears for Anne to wear at her leisure. Yes, we could take her picture. You can see how that went.

I loved Anne’s honesty and her unconditional gruff love for the people who cared for her. They, we, all of us offered that love right back. There’s an energy exchange when a community comes around to care for someone the way this community, in this little stretch of time, cared for Anne, and she for us. This was special. SHE was special. 

At breakfast a few weeks before she died, Anne talked more about family, expressing sadness about the lack of connection with her blood relatives. Suzette wondered aloud about adoption. “Anne, what would you think about us, all the people here who love you, adopting you?” Anne furrowed her brow, shrugged, then smiled a little. “Okaaaaaayyyy” was a favorite comeback. We heard that okay and went to work. 

Leslie offered to create official adoption paperwork. An email went out to the volunteers and staff, with an invitation for each person to connect with Anne about becoming part of her adopted family.  

Not shown at the bottom of this ultra-official contract for adoption is a line to designate the family member’s title: brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, parent, third cousin once removed—you get the idea and so did Anne. This allowed her to choose and, more than that, to connect with as many people as she could or wanted to within her midst. It was beautiful to see the front door open at Abode and watch someone walk in holding their signed, printed contract in search of Anne. 

An adoption party was planned for a bright spring Friday afternoon in May. On the Thursday morning before, Anne became unresponsive in a way we’d not seen from her before. Anne’s hospice nurse came to visit. The hospice team didn’t quite know what was happening either. We wondered about canceling the party and decided not to. We decided we’d love on Anne however we could.

In the hour or so before the adoption party, Anne came back enough to talk to us, to sit up in a wheelchair without assistance, and marvel at the people who’d come to be with her. We were also marveling at her timing and glad to have her back! Speeches were made. Adoption contracts from people around the country who couldn’t be in the room that day were read aloud. Food was eaten. Love was shared. We promised as a family to love Anne the best we could for as long we could. Here’s our family portrait from that day. 

Soon after this gathering, Anne’s symptoms changed in a way that required her to move to the in-patient hospice unit. We all knew she would not come back to Abode. She stayed a couple of days there, with a steady stream of adopted family members visiting along the way. 

On her last afternoon, four of us sat by Anne’s bed. Her breathing had finally changed in a way that let us know time was close. 

Clause #3 in the contract specified, “I will be present to lend my support, loving energy, and comfort her. I will help ensure that Anne’s wishes and requests are honored, including the playing of heavy metal music during her transition.” Anne’s specific request? Play “Highway to Hell" as she was leaving. We turned on AC/DC and said aloud to each other, “This is so Anne.” 

Anne didn’t take her last breath during that song, so we kept the AC/DC playlist going, listening and watching Anne gently laboring. After a bit of time someone in the group stood up and said to the rest of us, “Come on. The women of the village need to dance her out.” I looked over with raised eyebrows and thought to myself, They will kick us out of this building if they find us dancing to AC/DC by Anne’s bed. The instigator wasn’t having anything but action. 

“Get off your asses, women! We need to dance her out.” 

I closed the door to the room. 

We d-a-n-c-e-d.  

Anne did, too, right on out of her body. 

I have a fantasy that I’ll be in the presence of a psychic medium someday who will say, “I have a woman here who’s talking about dancing? And I hear music … wait, what is that… AC/DC???” 

Clause #4: I promise to remember Anne and honor her life and her legacy. 

A whole bunch of us are contractually obligated to do this, including me. I hereby reaffirm my promise to remember and honor Anne, a remarkable teacher and beautiful human. 

Signed, 

Anne’s Sister 

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On April 23rd, at 1p Central Time, (11am PT // 3pm ET // 7pm London) I’ll be offering a 90 minute online class, Language and Behaviors of Dying: From Confusion to Understanding. You can read more and register here.

We’ll be talking about deathbed language and behaviors, the trajectory of pre-death visions, and challenging the notion that our loved one is confused as they move into their dying process. Cost is $149. Register Here.

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