The Ending of a Life

There is nothing ordinary about the ending of a life. I have stood at more bedsides than I can count, and witnessed more last breaths than I could ever number, and still, each one feels sacred. It does not matter how old someone was, how long they were ill, or whether their death was expected or sudden. The final breath is significant because it marks the completion of a life, an entire story that will never be lived in the same way again. That ending is big. It deserves to be acknowledged with reverence.

When I am with a patient and they take their last breath, I do not rush anything, I do not immediately tidy the room or step away. I pause, and I sit in the quiet and honor the person who has just completed their life. Sometimes it is only me at the bedside, sometimes I am with members of the team and ask them to join me in the moment of silence. Sometimes family surrounds the bed and my pause and my silence are private as I make space for them to do this their way. Either way, I take a moment to thank them for trusting me with their care, hoping their final breaths were gentle, wishing them peace, acknowledging that their life mattered, because it did. Life is fragile, and death is sacred, both deserve our stillness.

When someone we love dies, the heaviness we feel is not only about the ending of a life, it is about the depth of the love that was there. Grief lingers because love lingers. The space they occupied in our daily lives does not close easily, and it should not have to. Whether we were given decades or far too little time, what we were given was a gift. The question is not whether it was enough, because it never feels like enough, but whether we cherished it while it was here and whether we honor it when it is gone.

Celebrating a life does not diminish the sorrow of its ending; it illuminates it. To speak their name, to tell their stories, to gather and remember, this is how we hold both the weight of death and the beauty of love at the same time. The ending of a life is heavy, yes, but wrapped tightly within that heaviness is love, steadfast, enduring, and worthy of being celebrated.

When we witness the ending of a life, whether personally or professionally, we are invited, and gently reminded, to honor not only the life itself, but the role we play in bearing witness. To shine a light on what was lived, even as we stand in what has ended.

xo

Gabby