Nonna died last night at about 10. She had three of her five children with her, having slept most of Monday after a fun-filled, offspring-filled Mother’s Day on Sunday. Every old person should have this on their last cogent day– Joe, Debbie, Jimmy, Amy, Isabella doing round-offs, Giuliana, Mary, Danny, Kelly, Makayla giving back rubs, Sofia, Sonny, Crystal, Luca, Matteo, Dave, Patty, Angie, Nick, Danielle, and Matt leading the children in saving the bee stuck in the room. Family aged 5 to 68, eating and laughing and visiting.
We thought our Camino was going to be a spiritual journey in Spain, silently counting rosary beads as we walked village to village among other pilgrims. How wrong we were! The journey actually was inward, descending into the deepest questions of human life and death. Should we go to Spain or not, with Nonna in the hospital? Should we come home now or wait, since she is not getting better? Should she go home under hospice care, or to a rehab center to get stronger? Do we have reservations or resentments about cutting the trip short? Who should we call and when? What pain meds should they give her? Should I stay with her or go home to get a few hours good sleep? Does she mean this or is she hallucinating? Does a family of 5 kids vote on every decision about her care? Who really is her favorite child? How do I support Joe and his siblings during difficult times? How do I want to die when it is my time? Those questions are a real Camino.
So these are the things I learned on this Caminito:
If you take good care of your loved ones while they are alive–spend time and have fun– there is little to regret when they go.
The people you love might die, but you have absorbed so much of them they now live inside you and through you. Kind of like communion. I know in any circumstance what my dad would say. “Put it back where it belongs. If you can’t do it right the first time, don’t do it at all. There’s the front door; it leads to all parts of the world.”
If you freely express all the love you feel, say the things you feel in your heart, you are relaxed and caring rather than tortured in the final hours.
If they have lived 91 years of a good, good life, or if their body is so racked by cancer or bad lungs that it can’t perform its daily functions, then it is ok for them to go.
Hell might be dying feeling alone and unloved. Heaven might be gifting the world a wonderful, competent, generative family to keep the good things going.
Your possessions are meaningless. Clothes. Furniture. Prized dishes and vases. Money. Spoon collection, souvenirs, house plants. They mean nothing.
Don’t work so hard. What’s the point? Enjoy your people. Live simply, eat simply, own less.
Buen Camino to all on the Way.