The Last Surge of Life

When my father-in-law, Ernie Skaggs, died a number of years ago we were with him at the hospital. As fate would have it my father was in the same hospital at the same time one floor above. My father, Lynn, had suffered a stroke and heart attack and wasn't expected to live. Ernie was suffering from liver disease and was in for treatment. 

My father had been in the hospital for some time and I had been visiting him for two successive weekends driving the six hours from Tennessee to Illinois on Friday evenings and the six hours back on Sunday evenings. My brother called early Friday morning and said that dad wasn’t expected to last the night so we had better come quickly. Margaret and I loaded our car, chose clothing to wear to my father’s funeral, and with our kids in the back we headed for Illinois with dread in our hearts.

When I arrived early that afternoon the doctors gathered us together and told us my father's blood pressure and oxygen levels were dangerously low and he was worsening. They strongly pressured us to agree to put him back on the respirator telling us he would die shortly without it. Seeing our reluctance they told us if we refused that his death would be on our heads because he would surely die without life support. We refused to acquiesce. Just the weekend before, after coming off the respirator, my dad had made me promise at his bedside that we not allow him to be put back on the respirator for any reason. He was adamant. We honored my dad’s request and waited at his bedside for him to pass.

On the other hand, my father-in-law, who was suffering from liver disease, had improved dramatically over the previous two days and was to be released the next morning. He was laughing and cheerful that evening; cheered by a surge in energy and spirit and anxious to be released. My wife Margaret and the kids went home with her mother that night and my mother and I spent the night in the critical care unit with my father, my mother in a recliner and me on the floor.

The next morning I left my father’s bedside to visit Margaret's father Ernie and was shocked to see him lying in bed, pale and ashen-faced, hooked up to a bag of fluid and medicines. “What happened”, I asked, not believing what I was seeing. “I don’t know”, he weakly moaned back to me with a look of despair on his face.

Ironically, Ernie died early that afternoon with us at his side. The funeral clothes we brought to attend my father's funeral were worn for Margaret's father's funeral instead. My father on the other hand miraculously improved and left the hospital the following week. He regained his health and lived almost four more years. He eventually died of a heart attack while on his feet following my mother across a parking lot. He died instantly the way most of us would like our lives to end and not on a respirator in a hospital as he might surely had if we had agreed to put him back on life support.

Medical history fully acknowledges that more often than not there is a notable surge of energy and spirit that precedes death, sometimes by minutes, or by hours or perhaps by a few days. Astronomers know the same is true of stars. Right before a star dies it expands and blazes with a surge of energy. Also, volcanoes, storms, and perhaps almost all life-forms release a surge of energy just before they die, perhaps as a sense of that impending death and a last great effort to fight it off – or perhaps just to go out with a bang. Just as we witness a candle’s burning, if allowed to pass naturally, the flame of life glows brightly one last time before it flickers and dies. 

Margaret left me the same way. Lying there in the IC unit she grew restless as she was just waking from surgery to repair a ruptured aneurysm. She was bending her legs moving them up and down and she suddenly awoke. I was standing next to her and her eyes opened and darted to find mine. She tried to raise her hand which was tied down. A respirator kept her from speaking. With one last effort she stared into my eyes as I spoke to her and then she closed her eyes and slipped into a coma, never to open her eyes again. One last flicker of life and she was gone. Our eyes holding each other for one last moment is a bitter-sweet memory that breaks my heart each time it finds its way into my thoughts. It hurts worse than anything I've ever experienced but at the same time it's one of the most treasured moments of my life. She was able to muster enough energy to say goodbye. I would give my life a hundred times over just to look into those eyes once more and feel her touch.