To be present and a willful witness to the passing of a lived life is a soul altering experience. You can never view life in the same way again. To feel the release of tension, to see the last breaths, to sense the ebbing of energy, and experience the exiting of a soul is at the same time life affirming and humbling.

I have been present for the passing of loved humans three times. And timing once allowed me to be present to prevent the resuscitation of a family member who had specifically requested to be allowed to die. Each of the three instances where I was willfully in the room were all very distinctly different experiences while they culminated in the scene; a silent hospital room surrounded by machines that told me what my heart already knew.

My mother collapsed at home. Emergency services were called and they began resuscitation protocols immediately. I watched a large, very strong man compress my mom’s chest repeatedly for a few minutes while others prepared the machine that would send jolts of electricity into her heart. The jolts lifted her upper body off of the floor. They were to perform that 6 times, three times in our living room and three times in the ambulance on the way to the hospital 5 minutes away before they were able to restore a blood pressure. She would pass away naturally 5 days later., surrounded by all of her children.

One of my sisters spent the last few years of her life in and out of hospitals with a variety of serious health issues. The most notable being a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Through all of her hospital stays, a malfunctioning heart valve wasn’t discovered until her next to last stay. Her final stay in the hospital, when the damage to her heart was irreversible, she woke up long enough to say she wanted no extraordinary effort made to keep her fragile heart beating. She too passed surrounded by those her loved her best.

My father’s death came after he was separated from his mind. Always as strong as an ox, he kept that strength through the madness of dementia. As his decision maker, I signed the paperwork necessary for a DNR to be the legal framework to allow him to peacefully reunite with himself. Hospice care is meant to give the patient and their loved ones as peaceful an end as possible. Unfortunately, the procedure wasn’t followed correctly, and emergency services were called when his heart went in search of his mind. I arrived just in time prevent an attempted resuscitation. But once the EMTs are called, they must follow through. The only reason my father’s body wasn’t put through CPR was because a staff person retrieved the DNR from my dad’s room and thus ending the EMTs effort. My father laid on the floor for 3 hours while we waited for the coroner to release his body to the mortuary.

My oldest sister’s demise was most definitely the most difficult to witness. With a long history of heart trouble, we were all aware that she needed more attention for that condition. In the end, her heart simple stopped beating. But her desire to live was so strong that we felt compelled to call 911 although we didn’t really know how long it had been since her last heart beat. For over 20 minutes, emergency services worked on her body to restart her tired heart. The violence of that resuscitation will forever be etched in my memory. Instead of a human performing CPR, they now have a machine that compresses a chest with alarming force. If my sister had indeed been able to wake up again, she no doubt would have suffered with broken ribs and perhaps more. But she never did wake up. Two days later she died, surrounded by her siblings, but only after the doctors explained that her involuntary bodily functions, primary her heartbeat was being medically induced. We all agreed to have the medicines stopped and machines removed to allow her a graceful exit in the company of love.

Death is natural. It is a necessary part of life. Death is what gives value to life lived in the sense that whole picture can be seen. The heartbeat is an involuntary muscle contraction. Resuscitating a heart that has ceased to beat is an unnatural act. Efforts to revive a person must be violent because it is an act that pushes again nature. It is for each and every one of us to decide what efforts must be made to return our hearts to normal function once it stops. I don’t want my family to ever experience what I witnessed with the passing of oldest siter. I’m sure there are others who feel differently.