Ammi Midstokke: A final lesson in love

In the small corner room of an assisted living facility, a man sat in a chair softly playing guitar, and five women surrounded another, beckoning her to let go.

“Your work is done,” we cooed.

“You are so loved,” we whispered.

But anyone who knew Marilyn will know that she would leave when she was damn well ready. Anyway, we had not laughed enough yet. So we told stories and summoned our joy at having known her, or having been raised by her, or having her as the darling grandmother of fairy tales, or in my case, a sort of satellite mom.

Years ago, before I knew her, Marilyn clipped my articles out of The Spokesman-Review and mailed them to her daughter in Sandpoint, sparking one of the most precious friendships of my life. Shannon and I have accompanied each other through many adventures, from marriage to divorce, our own version of rehab (bike-packing through Mexico on margarita flavored Pedialyte), the horrors of the aging athlete, raising teenagers, and now this one: loss and grief.

And the unsolved mystery of how anyone could sustain themselves on cookies and chocolate for so long. In this way, Marilyn continued to pioneer aging according to her rules, or at least the ones she could still make after the Parkinson’s diagnosis. We took notes for our own end-of-life plans: real milkshakes, none of that Ensure nonsense. Painted fingernails make a day better. Bribe your caregivers with Ghirardelli.

Marilyn once told me she wanted to be surrounded by music and laughter when she died. She later specified the British rock band Coldplay as a soundtrack to the separation of a soul. It had been her phone’s ring tone.

There are many questions about death and dying that remain unanswered for me, but in that moment I wondered if the sound of one’s phone ringing was the appropriate background music of the final departure. With Marilyn’s potential for distraction of late, she’d probably forget she was dying and keep trying to answer the phone. It seems more practical to choose a motivational march or Led Zeppelin. Are there not a lot of stairs to climb?

We noticed that most of us, including the hospice nurse, were wearing solidarity Birkenstocks by coincidence. When the adolescents of the nation had a brief love affair with Sketchers, Marilyn alone maintained the market demand to keep Birkenstock alive until they were en vogue again. She was also a testament to the endurance of floral prints and sequins as fashion staples. But on this day, she wore only a simple cotton nightgown dotted with tiny purple flowers and a thin gold necklace.

The necklace made me think of an invisible golden thread connecting spirit to the nebulae of the cosmos as the universe slowly reclaims the diaspora of stardust that has somehow become our life force. I’m not sure what awaits us, but I quite like the idea of an interstellar homecoming. Perhaps first, I can become the roots of a tree, or a north wind. I wondered what Marilyn knew already that she could not say.

People came and people left. Phones rang and were answered.

“She’s close. She’s peaceful. I love you, too.”

We hovered like little bumble bees, seeking real estate for our tender touches – a soft hand to hold, a wisp of hair to stroke, a foot to rub. Even Freya the Brown Dog curled up in the bed, rested her chin on a leg, and sighed the way dogs do when they are satisfied with a day’s work.

What kind of life must one live to be surrounded by this caliber of caring humans?

I asked Marilyn many questions these last months, but it occurred to me I might have forgotten the most important ones.

When the time came, her daughter sequestered herself for days in the same room to dote and nurture. A young granddaughter, not deterred by the slow violence of a succumbing body, stared down finality with love and courage. Nurses on their days off came to visit. Old friends. New friends.

There has been a lot of talk lately about being kind. Terms like “radical kindness” and “random acts of kindness” have been ushered in as a response to rancid radio shows, the cruelty of reality TV, and socially acceptable meanness. Kindness is spoken of as singular doses of an antidote to vagaries of disparate values or politics or policies.

Beyond our moments of inspired benevolence via bumper stickers, kindness ought to be a way of life. It’s a patient acceptance of the other, the kind of unconditional love that comes with humility, not righteousness. It is a welcoming of all, making room on the proverbial park bench, abstinence from judgment, a sharing of abundance. Marilyn was too humble to say such a thing, but living in kindness was her nature, her fundamental approach to navigating this life.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” she told me once, resolute, as if she had some deeper knowledge that kindness and the soul are on the same time continuum, or of the same stellar substance. She understood something about the infiniteness of love and it seemed to ground her in peace and patience.

While I wondered how to find this same truth, our friend played his guitar, and serenaded Marilyn with a musical invitation to leave behind the cumbersome and awkward reality of a body and frolic in the floral fields of the afterlife.

Thus, as requested, we surrounded her with music and laughter and reverence. Her pulse flitted like a butterfly against her wrist. She breathed softly until she’d satisfied herself with this life. And knowing the world was made better by her visit among us, she left it.

We’ll be unraveling lessons for the rest of our own lives, I am sure, but at least this one we understood.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com