Supporting my husband at the end of his life.
I am talking about shared, mutual, two-way support: each helping the other. For me, supporting and helping my husband through his illness and end of life, and for my husband, preparing me and my daughters for his impending death.
Support is a bond of love.
Supporting someone means adapting to a new life made up of losses (physical strength, deterioration in general health, loss of intimacy) and discoveries (compassion, openness of mind, a return to the essentials).
Accompanying your spouse means respecting their freedom, being “just in the middle.” Doing “just what is necessary” means helping without imposing.
Accompanying means allowing yourself to rest, to take a moment for yourself, to recharge your batteries, to catch your breath. Sometimes it means saying, “I don’t agree with you on this.”
Supporting means being true. It means accepting that you don’t understand everything, accepting your powerlessness in the face of the inevitable.
Supporting means welcoming each new day, one after the other, as it comes, with all its pain but also all its wonder.
Supporting each other means placing your complete trust in the other person. Accompanying each other means getting back to basics, listening to each other, talking to each other, forgiving and forgiving each other. It means removing the last little pebbles that hurt our feet.
Accompanying each other means preparing for the future (beyond death). It means saying “I love you” over and over again. Accompanying each other means living life to the fullest.
And when words are no longer useful, it means synchronizing your breathing with that of your loved one, letting go of your doubts and fears, and allowing yourself to be carried away by hope to live the present moment as a moment of eternity.
Accompanying each other means loving and allowing yourself to be loved.