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This address in a small Midwestern factory town was the launching pad for a life that has been messy, painful, Catholic, overseas, underpaid, in denial, in recovery, coming out, standing up, increasing glorious (if flawed), and under construction for over 50 years.
8 comments:
Wonderful! Thank you Andrea for writing and Thank you Jennifer for posting the link! Made me cry it, Is Beautiful!!!
The link isn't free anymore. Could someone cut and paste the article here?
Ditto....I can read the article and would love to...
can't read it I mean.
Courage when years become days
By REV. ANDREA AYVAZIAN
Ann Podolske of Northampton was 50 when her wife Linda died. Because Ann had been Linda's constant caregiver during Linda's long decline, we all thought Ann's pronounced fatigue after Linda's death was due to grief and weariness. We encouraged her to rest.
When Ann landed in the emergency room at Cooley Dickinson Hospital with shortness of breath and was immediately transported by ambulance to Massachusetts General in Boston, we realized she was very sick. As her pastor, I went to see her at Mass. General and was present when an upbeat oncologist told Ann she had a form of cancer that would respond well to treatment - he anticipated that she would live "about 18 years."
Ann's family, friends, and church family all took a deep breath: OK, we thought, this is bad, but 18 years is not terrible.
Surrounded by a community of loving support, Ann tried to return to "normal" life.
But things that were meant to make her better made her worse. She grew paler and weaker. A few weeks later the oncologist, no longer upbeat, said Ann had four months to live. We panicked. Ann updated her will. Soon after the four-month prognosis was announced, Ann spiraled down and her doctor said: Ann has three days to live.
To be precise, the doctor told Ann she had three days of consciousness, then would slip into coma and die. He told her on a Sunday. She knew she would be dead by the weekend.
Ann took charge of her final three days of consciousness and did not waste a minute. First she went online and updated her blog. Her final entry, titled "Love to you all" included these lines: "It looks as though my kidneys have taken a major turn for the worse, and what looked liked weeks may now be days. Maybe a day. Please know I am not afraid of dying. What I am is sad that I am going to be missing a big chunk of this wonderful, messy, loving and beautiful thing we call life. To those of you who are friends reading this for the first time after I died, I am sorry."
After she updated her blog, Ann wrote her obituary. Because she was a stand-up comic, her obit was factual and funny. She referred to being a "grateful dropout" of a graduate school program in management. She mentioned her time in the Peace Corps and the years she lived in New York City. She said of that era that "she thought she was straight, a ridiculous proposition if there ever was one."
And she named the exact day she got sober.
Once family, friends and church members heard that Ann was in her final days, about a dozen people moved into her house and never left. Folks gathered around the easy chair in her living room where Ann sat and reminisced, laughed, and did food runs for whatever cravings came over her (Mexican food, Moose Tracks ice cream, Chinese dumplings, Philly cheese steak). Seated on her "throne," Ann called friends far away (her first-year college roommate, friends on the West Coast). She told them she was dying and asked about their lives and listened with interest. While talking with people from coast to coast, Ann laughed hard, cried some and hung on every morsel of news.
People lived in Ann's house for the week, sleeping on futons, blow-up mattresses, even in chairs. Folks ate random meals of whatever was around including white chocolate pecan clusters for breakfast, and they lined up for a turn in the bathroom. Ann was never alone.
A Midwestern gal and stoic to her core, Ann was not one to express emotions easily but during her final days of consciousness she took to telling those around her how much she loved them and she accepted hearing how much we loved her.
Although swollen and pale, Ann smiled broadly and her prominent dimples - still visible - made her face twinkle. She talked about dying in matter-of-fact terms without fanfare or fear. She told me what she wanted in her memorial service (her dog had to be present) and what she did not want (no sodden hymns).
The doctor was wrong. Ann was conscious for four days. And she really lived it up. She savored each meal, entertained visitors, loved every phone call, pre-paid for her funeral, laughed at old jokes, cried when someone said good-bye and put her big dog right across her lap where she could stroke and talk to her.
When Ann slipped into a coma we moved her to her bed in the back bedroom and sang to her often. As we were singing one of her favorite songs from church ("There are angels hovering #round"), she turned her head toward us and tried to mouth the words. When one of Ann's fellow comics came, squeezed her hand and told her how much she loved her, Ann actually opened her eyes and said, "Thank you." Those were the last words I heard her say.
Ann died at noon on Saturday. I sprinkled holy water over her body, anointed her head with oil and thanked God for loaning us this remarkable being from whom we learned so much. And I said what I believe to be true: for Ann, all pain and suffering are over, death itself is past, and she has joined all the saints in light.
The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, pastor of the Haydenville Congregational Church, writes a monthly column on faith, culture and politics. She can be reached at newsroom@gazettenet.com.
Thank you "anonymous" for posting the article.
Thank you for posting the article.
WOW...that was wonderful and really sad all at the same time.
I miss Ann!!
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