Leaving this life can be cruelly complicated

This dying business is certainly a lucrative one.

In the days after my mother's passing I've served as the family contact for all those who make a living out of death - the undertakers, the funeral attendants, the cemetery officials and their gravediggers, the celebrant for the service, the coffin manufacturers and the caterers for a modest wake.

It's a little too early for the commerce jungle's apex predators - the lawyers. But no doubt they'll take their share of the cut in weeks to come as certificates require signatures and a will demands stamping.

Everyone, of course, has been unfailingly polite, courteous and clinically efficient. The phrase "sorry for your loss" has been uttered as often as the offering of a business card or the emailing of an invoice within hours of a meeting.

They have jobs to do, of course. And dealing with grieving, sleep-deprived families who are suddenly required to make critical and expensive decisions under enormous stress is not easy.

But the modern world's unceasing demand for paperwork and profit has made leaving this life a far more complicated process than entering it.

Surely there must be an easier way, if only because the long and complicated days after my mother's death stand in such stark contrast to those leading up to it.

Several months ago doctors decided Mum's Parkinson's disease and its associated dementia had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer safe for her to remain at home where my father had been devotedly caring for her in recent years.

Mum had always had an unshakeable faith in doctors that bordered on awe. We'd often joke that if you wanted her to do something she was stubbornly opposed to, all you had to do to win her over was wear a white coat and put a stethoscope around your neck.

But the decision to enter a nursing home was one she fought with the same defiance she'd shown toward her illness. For weeks she called Dad at night pleading with him to come and get her. Despite losing the ability to walk, visitors each day would find her sitting at the end of her bed with a packed bag, waiting to be taken home.

You might have expected her small room at the end of the corridor to become one to avoid. After all, it belonged to an 82-year-old woman who didn't want to be there and never missed an opportunity to remind everyone.

But not long after entering that nursing home something strange began to occur - strange only if you didn't know my mother. Her room soon turned into a dispensary. For hugs. For embraces. For emotional cuddles.

It wasn't the other residents of the nursing home making a beeline for room 315. It was the nurses.

We'd nicknamed Mum 'The Grief Mop' for years. She was an expert at soaking up the misery of others. Incredibly empathic, she had an uncanny knack for sensing suffering in those around her. People gravitated to her when they were down.

Unlike most of us who would find this burden emotionally exhausting, Mum thrived on it. The nurses clearly recognised her as one of their own; a kindred spirit instinctively driven to soften the pain in others. With every shift change a new batch of nurses would be in her room lining up for a hug.

In Mum's final days - she'd fallen one night after becoming confused and fractured her pelvis - the devotion of these nurses only increased. As the morphine pump eased her pain they came into the room every few minutes. When Mum took her final breath they sat and cried along with us, taking turns to hold her hand.

One of the young nurses was particularly upset and as visitors began arriving, she offered to dress Mum and brush her hair so she looked her best as the family farewelled her. I opened the door slightly and watched her give my mother a gentle kiss on the cheek.

"Hello lovely," she whispered to Mum. "We're going to have you looking nice."

She did that, so gently and carefully she could have been cradling a newly born baby. It was 90 minutes after her shift had ended. When she finally left I said I hoped she was getting overtime.

"What's that?" she asked a little incredulously. Then she laughed. "We don't work here for the money. We'd be crazy if we did. This job has so many other rewards."

A sentiment some in the dying business might like to consider.

HAVE YOUR SAY: What experiences have you had with the funeral industry? Have you already organised your own farewell? Is there an easier way to deal with grieving families and the pressures - emotional and financial - of organising a funeral? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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