Enough Already!

by Sandra Butler

How old do I have to be before I can put an end to my lifelong task of

trying to improve? Shouldn't there be a cut-off expiration date for all that

energy-consuming labor? Can there still be more to unearth after I've

reached the august age of 86?

I don't want to give up being my best self and come to the end of my

life stuck like tires on a muddy road, going over the same ground again and

again, asking the same questions and repeating the same answers.

Why was I who I was? What stories and behaviors did I create to protect

myself against re-experiencing the patterns of my childhood? Have I

recreated them in my adult choices or papered them over --just a little? How

would I know? And on it goes. Deeper and deeper into my autobiography.

It's a narrative where I play the lead, and everyone else is somewhere

between a co-star and a bit player. Oneself is an endlessly riveting subject

matter. Until it isn't.

My storage unit has three bankers' boxes of journals, letters, dreams,

and odd, once-meaningful objects. I think about the me who recorded her

life as she was living it, searching for clues to who and why she was as she

was, and I want to put my arms around her. The young me, the middle-aged

me, casting around for the key to unlock all these unfathomable mysteries.

Now, all these decades later, I'm less stubborn and more curious

because being right no longer has the same urgency as it did when I was

younger. Making mistakes, not understanding, being confused, and

forgetting come with the territory in one's late 80s.

Have I explored my psyche deeply enough, read enough books, and

had sufficient conversations to have fulfilled my efforts to improve? Is more

emotional labor required? I no longer think so. I've developed as much as

I'm going to. This is the best me I will ever achieve; there will be no more

unpacking and investigating.

Still, the issue of what happens next remains. At the end of this

chapter of my life, I'm going to die. That's what's next. What's left is

confronting the end of me. It's not like I'm dying next week, but it will be

soonish. I have a couple of years to go. That's why I'm living in Tucson now.

To have the best life I can near my daughters until I don't have any life left.

All the while I was paying attention to my interiority, dying became an

accomplishment. Like doing your own taxes or learning to throw pots. There

is a new goal described as a "good death." And therein lies the next self-

improvement hurdle. One wants to have a "good death"? It seems like a

worthy ambition, but who decides what that is? Are my daughters going to

assess my death after I can no longer join the conversation? Mom seemed

peaceful. Mom felt anxious. Do you think that Mom knew what was

happening? I hate the idea that I won't be a part of the conversations that

will concretize their story about Mom's death. It was mine, and I should be

the one to tell it. But it doesn't work that way.

Since I moved to Tucson, my daughters have urged me to think

through all the details that will, of necessity, accompany my death—the

good one. I've made all the medical decisions, which have now been reduced

to an orange laminated sheet attached with charming Parisian magnets to

my refrigerator door for EMTs who may need instruction in the case of, or

the inevitability of, an emergency in the middle of the night when most

emergencies take place. Whatever takes me out, no one will ever sadly

murmur; she died too young. I'm way past that marker.

Then there are the legal papers, which were also uncomplicated

because I don't have much of anything, and whatever I do will be divided

among my daughters. There is the list of my doctors, medications,

passwords, credit cards, the need to identify everything jumbled in boxes in

2my storage unit down the hall, and what I want to be done with them. And

lastly, where I want to be at the moment I'm leaving and who I want there.

My afterward is left to them. Whatever ceremonies and rituals will comfort

my daughters is OK with me.

My attempts at deflection at this exhaustively pointillist set of

conversations initially were,

"Let me think about it." "We'll see." And "When the time comes."

None of them worked. My daughters were prepared to skillfully but

firmly bat my hesitations away and move on to the tasks at hand. And there

were so many tasks. There were papers to be reviewed, rediscussed, and

notarized. There were questions to be considered. There were wishes to be

expressed. Wasn't it enough that I was going to die? Why did I have to have

all these conversations about it? But they persevered. What did I want?

Well, the main thing I wanted was not to die before I had a chance to

create a life in Tucson. But other than that, when I am dying, do I really

care what music is playing, what scents are scenting, whether the window is

open or closed? I'm dying and doubt that I'm paying attention to my

environment. Maybe I'd try for a couple of final words or a tender smile, but

beyond that, I don't think I'll be up for much of anything except the task at

hand. Yet I yield to what they need. All the details are complete now, and

my wishes have been identified (John Coltrane, eucalyptus candle, open

window, friends visiting for individual goodbyes).

Then there’s the last part. The final words, the deathbed whispers, the

moments children wait for when the dying mother finally says what they

have waited for all their lives. I'm proud of you. I love you. Even though

your choices were hard for me, I see how brave you have been—something

like that. Books and movies revolve around these pivotal moments that

release decades of grief in the child. I always thought that was both corny

and manipulative. Why wait till the very last second?

Instead, I have had a series of what my daughters call "mom's deep

talks" more frequently than they might have wanted. My preference has

always been to talk through my life and not wait till the end to murmur a

declaration or two. Over the past few decades, we've talked about what it

was like for them to be the daughters of a young mother trying and failing to

balance her own longings and ambitions with the stable domestic life they

deserved. I offered them my guilty regrets about the mistakes and wounds I

had caused in those years. Eventually, as they moved into middle age and I

became old, they found the spaciousness within themselves to forgive me

my trespasses, and I became better able to forgive myself. Mostly.

Now, accompanied by my increasing physical and mental

diminishments, I try to calibrate the precarious balance between my prideful

need for autonomy and lifelong vulnerable yearning for dependency. (Back

to the early childhood part of my explorations.) I'm patient with my

daughters' overprotectiveness, a result of their fears about living without my

strong presence. But for now, the overstuffed folder marked My Death has

been filed, and I turn back to this final period of my life. It will not be

examined. It will be lived with a full heart, a curious mind and orthopedic

shoes.

Sandra Butler’s latest book is Leaving Home at 83.