1: Something seemed off, Diane thought when she arrived at her client, Amanda’s house.
“I noticed immediately that there were no paw prints at the front door. Her house was spotless. The kitchen was uncluttered, no clothes on the floors, nothing out of place,” Diane Button writes in her powerful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.
Diane is an end-of-life doula. She sat with Amanda on the couch. “The first thing she mentioned was that she had no pain all week, a huge shift from the weeks before. She shared the positive update from her doctor that her tumors had not grown. She told me she had plenty of energy and even attended the final half of each of her kids’ sporting events during the week, and then went on a surprise date with her husband.”
Good news, for sure.
“Yet I could tell something wasn’t right,” Diane recalls.
“I asked her if anything happened this week that bothered her or that she wanted to talk about.”
2: Amanda responded that everything was fine. She was tired but grateful that she had been able to go out four different times in one week.
“I commented on how clean her house was this week, and that’s when it surfaced,” Diane remembers.
Amanda explained that her three best friends had come over to clean her house.
“They spent almost an entire day cleaning from top to bottom,” she told Diane. “They organized my drawers, did laundry, and cleaned out the refrigerator.”
The last task on the list was to mop the paw prints off the entryway. Then, they gave Amanda a big hug and told her they would all be back next week to clean again.
Hearing this story, our first reaction might be: “Wow, that’s so kind of your friends. You must love to have three fairy godmothers come and clean your house for an entire day!”
But as an end-of-life doula, Diane had learned to listen carefully. “I could tell that this was where the unspoken words were hiding,” she explains.
Diane asked: “What was it like for you to have your friends come in and clean your house?”
Which is when Amanda began to cry.
“My house doesn’t feel like love anymore. It doesn’t feel like a family and dogs live here,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like there’s a life being lived in the house anymore. I feel so bad for feeling this way, but this clean house makes me so sad and scared.
“It feels like everyone is getting ready for me to die. I want there to be life in this house today, tomorrow, and every day, even after I’m gone.”
3: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.
At the end of each week, we are exploring some of the life lessons from Diane’s book What Matters Most.
Diane reflects: “Amanda wanted to experience the day-to-day messiness, the noise, and the familiar paw prints on her floor. She wanted to see a large pile of dirty clothes and her kids’ fingerprints on the refrigerator door. She wanted to feel alive and see its proof everywhere. She craved everyday life.
“These may have looked like ‘outer layers’ to her caring friends,” she notes. “But they actually represented the deepest layers of Amanda’s meaning and purpose in life, to be enjoyed for the time she had left.”
Diane has seen this pattern play out with many of her clients who are dying.
“Well-meaning friends and loved ones want to help,” she writes. “They want to lighten the dying person’s load, and they often show up in the ways that they themselves would want to be supported in these times.”
But each of us is different. Each of us is unique.
“Some people crave alone time and find it frustrating when there is a constant flow of visitors trying to cheer them up,” Diane writes.
“Most people want to maintain their autonomy and independence as long as possible, so when others step in to ‘lighten their load,’ they feel their freedom and their everyday routines, slipping away.”
The lesson? “If we are ever in a position to support someone, don’t make assumptions. Simply ask them before doing,” Diane recommends.
“For Amanda, she knew what was meaningful and joyful, and she was living with intention for the time she had left,” she notes. “I suspect that she had lived most of her life this way.
“Living with the awareness of what is most important in mind can guide us toward an understanding of what areas of our lives are flourishing, and what areas might need a little care and nurturing.”
That night, Amanda shared how she felt with her friends.
“The next time I showed up at the house,” Diane writes, “I smiled at the pairs of shoes piled at the front door and the sound of laughter and loud music coming from inside the house. I knew there would be paw prints, fingerprints, and a beautiful mess inside.
“Amanda left beautiful memories for her husband and kids to treasure,” she observes, “and a somewhat messy and well-lived-in house.”
More next week!
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Reflection: In “my one wild and previous,” what matters most? My life doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s. Peel away the layers, and don’t be afraid of what I find, as it will reveal a lot about who I am.
Action: Journal about my answer to the question above.