One final nag
And a one-of-a-kind living funeral
Cat* had an advanced breast cancer that coursed through her body in a matter of months. She had just begun planning her retirement when she was diagnosed, and had to then divert her energy into attending multiple medical appointments and sorting her legal affairs. At the very point she felt her life was just beginning at retirement, it turned out to be cruelly the opposite.
Cat, like many of our patients, had a final project she requested our input for. She wished for us to host and coordinate her living funeral, which we were honoured to be a part of. We’d certainly had our fair share of being involved in ‘awake funeral wakes’.
This, however, was a very unique one, as Cat wanted to ‘hold a funeral for (her) previous life’, before she started living out this last chapter to the best of her abilities. She wished for a ‘final hoorah to (her) old self’, before she embarked on the bucket list items in her new chapter.
In line with popular young adult culture, Cat produced a slideshow presentation on her ‘life updates’ through her journey of diagnosis and initial treatment, as well as her ‘proposed journey’ from that point forward. She photoshopped images of herself doing things like sky-diving and shark cage diving, and visiting various global landmarks in different traditional costumes. As part of her ‘funeral agenda’ she put up polls for everyone to vote on the best activities and places for her. This was also the first living funeral we had been involved in with lottery tickets being sold - she labelled these the ‘death lottery’, because she felt her misfortune would surely bring others luck.
Cat had an eccentric personality and a wicked sense of humour. She was beautifully supported by her husband, Paul*, who himself was quite the trouble-maker. Together, the pair of them made us chuckle every day.
Paul constantly pushed her buttons, from doing small things like wearing socks with sandals while visiting her, to sharing recordings of her snoring with staff. He even often brought in mismatched socks and pyjamas when he brought fresh laundry for her, to see if she was compos mentis. Cat would tell us that ‘Paul is not quite the full penny because of his advanced age’, and his response would be for us to ‘Watch out, because when she can no longer speak on her deathbed she will most certainly still be swearing’. At one point, Paul even pretended to steal some of the hand-sewn hospice quilts home in order to tick her off, knowing how mortified and embarrassed she would be.
Daily, Cat would tell us she was going to tell Paul off one last time, so that he would never forget her, and so that he would ‘behave’ after she was gone. She made him leave the ward most evenings to rest at home, always telling him that she would still be alive the next day because she still had that one final nag coming.
When Paul needed to be away for an important 3-day work trip, Cat literally forbade him from skipping the trip to be by her bedside. She promised him she would still be alive when he got back, because she had to nag him one final time. Paul began joking that maybe if he kept leaving her side, she would have to stay alive for longer just to fulfill this final nag - we certainly wouldn’t have put it past her to harness her willpower for that.
Cat died peacefully on our unit after a very short battle with her cancer. She never quite got around to doing all her bucket list items, but she had, in her own words, ‘a smasher of a funeral’ and enjoyed celebrating her life one final time with her loved ones. Up until the weekend before she died, she never failed to mention that last big nag that was yet to come for Paul.
Of course, we were not privy to this final nag, and over the weeks after her death we often speculated what the content of this final nag would be - but having had the privilege to witness their many interactions we could almost predict the comedic value of this conversation.
To our delight, Paul visited us a few months later and shared with us that she had nagged at him to bring ‘a really pretty date’ to her funeral.
What an honour it was to have had the opportunity to enjoy Cat’s eccentricity, even just for a little while.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to lose a loved one? Paul told us it was like losing his left leg.
*Names and details have been changed to protect patient confidentiality