1: Ever experienced a sleepless night?
Ever lie in bed “contemplating the end of a relationship, a job transition, our physical health, or concerns about children and family members?” Diane Button asks in her powerful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.
The next morning, we typically get up and start the next day. When we stop to pick up our coffee, the barista says, “How are you doing today?”
“I’m fine,” we say. Then, “we head to our job, to the bank, for an appointment, or off to see some friends. Every time someone asks how we are doing, we say the same thing over and over: “I’m fine.”
But are we really? Are we fine?
“In our stressful, fast-paced world, it seems that we are all filled with so many emotions, and so many worries, that I wonder if any of us are ever simply ‘fine,'” Diane observes.
One thing we can do is be intentional about paying attention to the emotions that “percolating within us,” she suggests.
2: 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.
“Some people hold their worries tightly to their chest, even with a large community of support,” Diane writes.
“Roger was one of those people,” she notes. He said he was ‘fine,’ but he was clearly unsettled. He thought he was hiding it well, but his family knew better.
Roger was eighty years old, a retired dairy rancher who was dying of lung cancer.
His daughter, Jessie, had reached out to Diane, who is an end-of-life doula because she felt her father was “bottled up and twisted,” she writes. He told everyone he was “fine,” but those who loved him knew better.
“Jessie’s message sounded urgent,” Diane recalls, “yet the urgency was not about his impending death but rather his emotional state.”
Jessie shared with Diane that her father had “been stoic his entire life, beginning with his childhood that included an endless rotation of foster care families.
“My dad had very little consistency and no unconditional love in his life until he married my mom, Julie,” she said. “They’ve now been married fifty-five years and have five children and thirteen grandchildren. They were enjoying a peaceful retirement in a small, rural farming town with all of us close by, but then my dad got sick.”
Roger had been a good father and husband, but he rarely shared how he felt and never spoke of his childhood.
“It suddenly occurred to her,” Diane writes, “that maybe her father was holding a lifetime of feelings, not just about his current situation but about his entire past, including his childhood.
“She explained that her dad had softened over the years, especially when the grandkids came along, but lately he was less affectionate toward them, unusually closed-off, and grumpy. She was frustrated and they were all tired of him saying he was always ‘good’ or ‘fine.'”
Jessie was reaching out with the hope that her father might be more open to talking about his feelings and his fear of dying with an unrelated third party.
Jessie told Diane she would talk with her dad and be in touch.
“I was surprised when Roger called me back himself the very next day,” Diane remembers.
“My daughter said I needed to call you because my family is worried about me. I’m fine,” he told Diane. “They don’t need to worry about me.”
“I think they really care about you and want to be sure you are able to talk about all that you’re going through with someone,” she explained.
“I know. I know. I just don’t want to worry them. They can’t handle seeing me like this, and there’s nothing they can do about it anyway. My wife gets hysterical just watching me try to get my aching body out of bed in the morning.
“Then the days just seem to get more emotional every hour until Jessie comes over, and then she gets all emotional, too. I’m just tired,” he said.
Diane was surprised by how much information Roger volunteered.
“It reminded me there are always at least two perspectives,” she writes. “Roger wasn’t sharing his emotions with his family, but he was also trying to protect his own limited energy for the precious time he had left, and he had every right to be holding back to avoid worrying his family.
“This is a classic story,” Diane observes. “Roger wasn’t saying anything about his illness and pain because he didn’t want to worry his family, but they were worried because Roger wasn’t saying anything about his illness and pain.
“It’s the unhelpful cycle of each person protecting the other person, when what they really need is a healthy conversation, a realistic plan, some togetherness, and probably a good cry,” she notes. “These dynamics are rooted in love and care, but they can stifle communication and hide the truth.”
A few days later, Diane and Roger sat together in the living room of his home. She immediately noticed a wall full of family photos.
“It struck me in that moment that the photos we display for others to see do not capture all that comes together to make a life,” she writes. “As in most homes, the photos on Roger’s wall were filled with smiles, vacations, weddings, holiday celebrations, and family gatherings. We don’t tend to display the hard times…no grief-stricken faces, no hospital stays, no divorce papers.
“Perhaps we want to remember only the good times,” she reflects, “but if I’m going to get to know a client, I want to hear the stories that live between the smiling faces hanging on the wall.
“We never really know a person until we take the time to hear their story,” Diane writes. “the full, true story…including the parts that didn’t make it into a picture frame.”
Given what Jessie had shared, Diane was prepared for Roger to be reserved.
“The girls are out, so it’s just you and me,” he told her. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
Before they knew it, two hours had passed.
“As I supported him with some thoughtful questions, curiosity, and a warm heart willing to simply listen, Roger slowly opened up and shared his life with me, starting with his ‘lonely and emotionless childhood,'” she remembers.
“We explored the dynamics that were embedded in his current relationships and his family, with Roger accustomed to always being the person who was in control, strong, and unshakable.”
“Roger, what’s bothering you the most?” she asked him.
He responded clearly, “Everyone treats me like I’m already dead. They talk about me like I’m not in the room and keep me out of family decisions. It makes me feel like nobody needs me anymore.”
Roger’s voice cracked as he went on, “And I don’t always want to talk about cancer,” he said. “I want some alone time. I want my wife to relax and watch a movie with me. I don’t need a lot, but everyone seems to be buzzing around me like I’m helpless and dying…OK, I’m dying, but not today! I would just like the days to be normal again.”
Roger talked about wanting to feel like a family again.
“They follow me around and try to brush my hair and make the bed every time I get up to pee. This may sound crazy, but I haven’t even changed the toilet paper roll in months,” he said. “Every time it’s almost empty, someone replaces it, like I can’t even do that. I can brush my own damn hair and change the toilet paper roll, too!”
“He simply wanted to participate in the chores and to be needed,” Diane writes.
Roger and Diane’s talk led to a family conversation that was “centered in truth and gave Roger a chance to finally voice his frustrations,” she remembers. “He admitted that he was not ‘fine’ and asked clearly for what he wanted.”
Other family members also spoke up about their needs. Together they found ways “to keep living life without the dark cloud of cancer taking over every waking moment,” Diane writes.
“And because of the honesty, Roger was able to step back into his favorite roles of husband, father, grandfather, and rancher.”
3: Several weeks passed, and then Diane received a call from Jessie
“My dad isn’t doing too great. He is coughing nonstop and is short of breath. He asked if you would come by and see him.”
As Diane drove to Roger’s house, she felt “peaceful and full,” she writes. “What an honor it is to be invited into such an intimate and meaningful time in a person’s life.”
When Diane arrived, Jessie was calm, but also worried and afraid. “I’m scared he’s going to choke to death,” she said.
Diane walked into Roger’s room and saw he was struggling, but he smiled and waved her toward him. “Go ahead and ask me,” he said.
“How are you doing today, Roger?” Diane asked him with a slight smile on her face. “Because I knew he had learned to tell the truth about how he feels,” she writes.
“I feel like shit!” he replied with a crackly but clear voice, followed by his trademark grin.
The hospice nurse took Roger’s vitals, adjusted his oxygen, and put a plan in place to monitor and control his pain. He said he would return the following day to check on Roger.
“But there was no need,” Diane writes. “Roger died that night, with his family by his side.”
Diane reflects: “We can learn a lot from Roger. A lot is going on emotionally inside all of us.
“Feel your feelings. All of them,” she suggests. “It’s OK to feel sad, mad, scared, angry, or any other emotion that might be brewing inside us. Once we identify an emotion we are experiencing, we can dig a little deeper by asking ourselves why we might be feeling that way.
The next time someone asks, “How are you?” take a moment to pause, think about it, and tell them the truth,” Diane writes. “It builds deeper relationships and gives us a moment to check in with ourselves, too.”
More next week!
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Reflection: How often do I say I’m “fine” when there are deeper feelings I should acknowledge—both for my own well-being and for those who care about me?
Action: Pause and answer truthfully the next time someone asks how I’m feeling, inviting a moment of real connection and self-awareness.
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