Encounter with an Ancestor: Brooke Neal

This is the last story in a series. Readers are welcome to start where they wish, with any of the stories linked below, or with this one.

Introducing Brooke
Funeral Songs, featuring Janet
Why Bother
Watercourse Way
Magnetic Steel Velcro
Bright Balloon, Brim of Love

The common misconception that hospice speeds up the dying process will often make patients and families hesitate to consider it an option, or sometimes rule it out entirely. If anything, hospice has a financial incentive to keep people alive longer, since medicare pays per-day, starting when the patient enrolls.

On the other hand, lots of patients and families would freely accept something to speed up the dying process, especially during in the final days-to-weeks. When I told a writer acquaintance about this series, she shared this quote from her mom: "They’ve figured out how to make us live longer, but they haven't figured out why." The writer's mother elected to end her life, with support from the Canadian healthcare system, at age 90.

I feel like Brooke may have opted for something similar, at the end, if it had been an option. The closest option we have in most of the United States is called VSED, Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking, which often lasts weeks. VSED is in part what finally took Brooke across the threshold.

October/November, 2021

Brooke’s final week was increasingly difficult.

I stayed with her the night of Oct 29, sleeping-and-not-sleeping on a chair that folds into a horizontal piece of furniture that I won’t call “bed,” as it was only slightly wider than my shoulders, with armrests sticking up next to my hips. She woke me periodically to hydrate a tiny sponge on a stick and put it into her mouth, then she’d squeeze the water out, an ounce of relief within a tough reality. 

It’s hard to tell how hard it was. At one point I asked her, “Is this the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” and twice she said “un-uh,” indicating no. When she explained herself, it came out as babbling sounds, vibrations with a tone of explanation and reassurance. I’ll never know if she was putting on a brave face for me, or for my recording device. From my perspective, it seemed like she was having a very hard time, all day and all night for a week.

My last recording of her is one her friend Carol made, with just the sound of her breathing, and in it you can hear the struggle, struggling to hold on while struggling to release, pulling apart magnetic steel velcro.

On her last night, a few days after Halloween, I spoke with her son Adam about playing some of the Matthew McConaughey audiobook that she had appreciated back when we could understand what she was saying. In retrospect, this goal of attempting to make a pleasant space for her, at that stage in her process, was misguided.

Her son Eric was with her that night, and he knew that it was not time for a celebrity audiobook. Rather than responding to each of her calls for water, he held the space of the room with his presence. Those sips of connection tethered her to her caregiver and to her body, and they delayed the transition she had intended. The final task of care was less about keeping her comfortable, and just as much about escorting her onward.

I think of the story Brooke told of her friend holding the sign that said “Follow Me,” who stepped in a hole and broke her foot. Brooke had put so much effort into communicating about her exit process that it may have made the exit itself more difficult. Impossible to say for sure. What we do know, over and over, is that dying is so very challenging for most folks.

She did not have a funeral. It was 2021, going into winter, and COVID-19 was on the rise again. I still wonder about the possibility of a memorial of sorts, including big show of her art. We talked about it for awhile, then it started to feel like a hassle and made more sense to let it rest.

In my years of working as a nurse, no one has given me as close of a look at the dying process as Brooke did, talking her way through each step, in medical detail, observing it with her Zen attention. She was one of a kind. Ringtailed Tooter. Cocktail Spaniard.

It feels like an honor to have witnessed Brooke’s final weeks as closely as I did, and sometimes it feels like a responsibility, the gravity of these recordings that feel so valuable, which could support so many friends and strangers alike, a guiding light for a whole generation of people navigating toward transition. Brooke turned down a routine surgery, opting instead for a more timely death. I feel like more people would do that, if they knew it was an option…

A few years after Brooke died, I got to go tubing several times in one summer. I thought of her metaphor, “tube through life” and I was excited to practice following her instructions at the literal level, letting the river take me downstream. When the rubber met the water, I would drift into places where I would get stuck if I didn’t put in some effort, getting out of the tube every now and then to walk it to another spot, or sometimes paddling a little bit with my hand. I would probably still be on that river now, waiting for it to take me downstream, without these frequent exertions. I have been learning to loosen my grip on Brooke’s instructions to take the easy road, giving myself permission to exert effort, including in this newsletter project, in spurts that support me getting back into the flow.

On a phone call, my friend Bonnie named how there’s a balance between effort and ease, how we can’t just do one or the other. Maybe the analogy is more like a sailboat than a tube, where we work with the rutter and keel, with the sail and the weight of our bodies, aligning with the forces of nature, with real effort. Giving myself permission to exert myself in this project, to allow myself to want and to pursue, has been a process. Letting go of Brooke has included letting go of some of her instructions, or at least holding them more lightly.

In terms of physical things, from Brooke I inherited some dried flowers, one of her paintings (shown above), and of course Sweetie Boy. Sweetie moved into my house before Adam flew out, and he’s been next to me while I’ve been editing audio and text, with the sound of Brooke’s familiar voice keeping us company for nearly five years, on-and-off.

I still can’t kiss his head or put my nose into his fur, from the allergies, but otherwise I’m so pleased by how little he makes me sneeze, thanks to inner work, a daily antihistamine, and an air filter next to my bed.

As I work on the computer, Sweetie paws with his claws at my hip for attention, and when I take breaks to pet him or hold him or feed him, or turn on the bathtub faucet to quench his thirst, I return to my own body, back into this moment, this physical reality, with all its absurdities. 

Some nights, after I lie down he’ll make his way into my room and then pause next to the bed, gathering strength for the jump. I lift my hand and he pops up onto the bed, bee-lining to nuzzle my hand with his head, purring immediately, sometimes lying on my torso with all of his twenty pounds. His purr is so loud.

I hold a book in one hand while I pet him with the other, and he’s always concerned when I take a break to turn the page. Eventually he migrates to the lower half of the bed where he curls up for the next handful of hours. For years, Sweetie has been my reason for getting out of bed in the morning, plus at least once in the middle of the night.

I installed a cat door from the outside of the house into the crawl space under the floor, and he can go down there whenever he wants. That’s where he does his job, monitoring for critters. On the nights when he sleeps in there, he’ll make a noise for me to come let him inside for his snack, around 3AM. He hears me put on my slippers and shuffle to the door, and when I open it he’s already headed up the steps toward me. 

Even though Brooke left a big space, she also gave so generously during those final weeks, and in the process she left much more than empty space, for me specifically. Through Sweetie and through this project, I have felt even closer to Brooke than during her life, and it has given me joy to share some part of that closeness with you.