Final Conversations

This post is not meant to be morbid nor depressing.  Hopefully, you will gain some insights about the last conversations you may ever have with a spouse, parent, sibling or someone very close to you.  These thoughts are based on the book – The Four Things that Matter Most by Ira Byock, M.D.

When someone you cherish is facing their last days on this earth, it is doubtful you’ll have conversations about the weather or the recent Mariner’s or Seahawk’s game.  You probably won’t brag about the new Lexus you just purchased either.  I hope you go much deeper than all of that. 

If you are like a lot of people, you want your last breath, and the breath of your loved one, done right.  You want to say the right words at the right time.  Usually, those words fit into four neat phrases. 

     “Please forgive me.”

       “I forgive you.”

         “Thank you.”

           “I love you.”

I hope you seek to fill those final conversations full of loving and esteeming relationship restoration moments.  Make magical memories for those who will be left behind.

Dr. Byock tells a touching story of a man named Ira and his father’s last days.  The short version of the story is this:  The father had always been a man of stern disposition.  He never showed emotion and never expressed the “I love you” words. 

During the last month of life his father asked Ira to give him a shave during one of his morning visits.  Ira was taken aback at this request, but quickly consented and got the shaving tools needed. 

He placed a hot towel on his father’s face, and they began talking softly all during the process.  Ira used the soap cup and brush his father had used his whole life, which happened to be the same soap, cup and razor his father used when teaching Ira to shave as a teenager.  After he finished, his father asked him if he would come and do that again. 

Ira consented, and soon realized that his dad didn’t need his son to shave him.  The hospice team had been doing that.  His father simply wanted Ira to touch him.  Touch is one of the most powerful forms of communication when words fail us. 

Ira reflected after his father’s death:  “It was something he needed, and it was obviously something I needed as well.  Touching my father was magical.  We communicated more love to each other during those times than we ever had in all our lives.”

My wife Carolyn tells a similar story of her father’s wish for her to shave him during his last days.  Though they had a good and healthy relationship, this simple act of touch and gentle conversations had an impact that was magical, esteeming and memorable.  

We all will have those final crucial conversations.  I hope they become rich memories and restorative moments in your relationships.

P Michael Biggs

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