Dying is Not Always a Sad Process, My Grandmother’s Glorious Last Hurrah

My mother and my grandmother in Florida not long before my grandmother died.

We think of dying as something tragic–a path paved in despair. But my Swiss grandmother Ida taught me otherwise. At seventy-eight, she awoke one morning struggling to swallow. My mother took her to the doctor, who slid a scope down her throat and into her stomach. There it was: a tumor. The diagnosis was stomach cancer, and the doctor told my mother Ida had only five months left to live.

When they arrived home that day, my grandmother turned to my mom and said, “I don’t want to die in a hospital. I don’t want surgery… I don’t even want an X-ray. I’m ready to go.” And she meant it. Ida lived — and died — on her own terms, with great panache.

 “I don’t want to die in a hospital; I don’t want surgery… I don’t even want an X-ray. I’m ready to go.”

That strong woman got on the phone and called all her friends and relatives to announce the news. She invited everyone to visit. And over the next few months, everyone came. My grandmother adored the company. She told funny stories and laughed with everyone around her. They brought her gifts like it was her birthday party — only instead, it was her “dying party.” Ida put on her gifts, hamming it up in the funny t-shirts and hats everyone knew she’d love. She always enjoyed socializing, and the flow of people coming to see her made Ida giddy with delight. This was her big moment, and she shined as the belle of the ball.

Put simply, she had the time of her life.

She taught me that death can be understood and accepted in many different ways.

The hill in the garden where my grandmother’s cremation ashes were scattered above Seven Ponds lakes.

Don’t get me wrong—of course there was sadness, a bitter end, watching death take over my grandmother as she slowly starved. The last food she could swallow was just the spoonfuls of baby food my mom fed her. I will never forget the pain in my mother’s voice when she said, “I bathed your grandmother this morning, and she had no armpits.” Yet, with the help of hospice, she suffered as little as possible. The deep dreams induced by medication slowly became one long, endless sleep as she slipped into a coma.

“I had a great life. And now it’s your turn to live yours.”

The last time we spoke was over the phone. I was in my apartment in New York City, just beginning my shiny new twenty-something life, while she lay in Florida — withered by cancer, ready to let go. Yet her spirit was uplifting. Her last words to me, spoken with full conviction and no remorse, were: “I had a great life. And now it’s your turn to live yours.”

Those words have replayed in my mind ever since — a reminder to live each day to its fullest.

Sometimes, people truly are ready to go, and they choose to make the best of it. Ida now rests among the flora on the hill by Seven Ponds Lakes in Michigan.