Gift of death: the animal waits for you until it dies. So too with those who die in a hospice. ‘I would like your permission to die’. ‘I would like to give my death to you’. Last gift: death as release, relief. Not to die alone, but with others, the ones who love you. Yes, but isn’t it that same love – on your side, now, your love for them – which makes you cling to life?
‘I do not want to die, for you will be alone with dying. I, who am dying, do not want to die, and to leave you with death. What of you, who will outlive me? How will I protect you when I am on the other side of death? This is why I cling to life – it is why I am not dead yet. I am thinking of you, who will survive me. You, whom I will not be able to protect. And if I let myself die now, what then? If I relax into death, what of you?’
Last gift: stay as long as you can. Stay with them, wait for them. Your life is over. That was it – life. But now, in dying, a new life, the life of all things that struggle against death. The hospice is the place where you came to die. Outside trees and plants and a fountain. Outside, life – and inside? Dying is everywhere. A dying patient to each bed. The stench of death, and the antiseptic to keep death away. And nurses, who are angels among the dead. And your visitors, the living among the dying, who are with you at the threshold.
Last gift: die, after the struggle to live. Die: you could do no more, and those that live must do so without you. Die – and they will know you greatest concern was for them, the ones who live. Until your death is testament to your love, and that is what you give, last gift.
‘I waited for you until I died. I struggle, and now I must die. Watch over me. Watch over me, who would watch over you. Watch over my watching; draw it into yourself. I give you this, my death, as the testament of my love.’
Lars Iyer's Blog 