Farmers are not strangers to death, they live with it almost every day of their lives, and they rarely die in hospitals or nursing homes or assisted care facilities.

Farm families go beyond biology, almost every farmer is a family member to every other farmer.

In 1940, 83 per cent of Americans died at  home. Today, 90 per cent of Americans die in hospitals or nursing homes.

In many ways, being with Ed and Carol while Ed is dying from terminal brain cancer has brought me back in time, I’ve read about the way people once died, but I am feeling it and seeing it, and it is different and powerful.

Farm families are not like most families now, they live differently, and they do not hide from death or shield their children and friends from it. Ed is in a hospital bed 15 feet from the back door where everyone enters the house.

People walk past him all day.

Visitors come from farms as far away as Pennsylvania, especially on weekends. Today, a Mennonite chorus came in to sing hymns to Ed, they read about his cancer and asked to stop by. Ed and Carol both said sure.

No one but Fedex and UPS drivers knock, they just open the door and come in.

Today, a neighbor came in and leaned over Ed who was sleeping and reached down and whispered into his ear, “Ed, God bless you, and thanks for everything.”

And without saying anything to anyone, he turned and walked  out. I’m not sure if Ed heard him or not, he didn’t move or respond.

An elderly woman whose car Ed would repair for free came to cry and kiss Ed on the forehead.

A cousin came by later with flowers, then a neighbor weeping. Then a  New York State Assemblyman studying dairy farms. This would drive me mad, but no one blinks. It is just the way people die on farms.

 

Grandchildren and children come in and  out of the farmhouse all day.

Hungry from farm chores – they are all  helping to run the farm – they get food from the refrigerator. They make it themselves – and eat next to Ed or in the same room. They say hello to him kiss him on the forehead, talk to him, say hello, even if he doesn’t  respond.

They have no fear or apprehension about approaching him, they all understand that he is dying, and they ask Carol questions, or me if I am there, and go about their business.

Nothing is kept from them. They seem to grasp that this is not something to just fear, but a part of life. It is also a time to come together.

Like most farms, the Bejosh Farm kitchen is always busy, there is always food, anyone can come in and eat at any time – and does – and there is almost always someone there. Ed is not ever alone, and every sound he hears is familiar to him.

Ed is failing more and more each day, he is now on pain medication for the first time, and he is also on anti-anxiety medication. His body is shutting down, I can see it in his face. No one can know how long it will take, but it is happening.

Carol is fighting hard to keep him alive, but I can see in her eyes that she is accepting his death and preparing herself for it.

Whenever Ed wakes up or opens his eyes, or has a dream, someone he knows or loves is standing above him,  everything he sees and hears is familiar. The dogs and cats and Oz the Cockatiel have stopped watching him and lying near him, they understand that in one sense, he has left.

If if he frightened, there is someone next to him to give him medication, wipe his brow, adjust his pillows and blankets, hold his hand.

Carol, who is usually sitting up all night with him by herself, has deep and hollow eyes, no one even bothers to urge her to rest, it is pointless.

“I’m going to give you the only advice I have ever given you,” I said, looking her in the eye this morning, “you must get some sleep or you will not make it through this.”

She nodded, and said, “I know,” but she will be sitting up with him tonight, all night, perhaps dozing in the chair for a few minutes.

This is the way we all died once, this is the way Ed wished to die, this is the way his father and mother died, and Carol’s father and mother died.

Farm people are not strangers to death, they do not hide from it,  or send their old ones off to die alone, and I can see with my own eyes that it makes the children around them stronger and wiser and gives them a profound understanding of life and death, and the reality of being human.

Death will not be a dread shock and horror fo them, they will know what it looks and feels like.

It will be sad, but not only sad.

This morning, I sat next to Ed while Maria talked with  Carol in the kitchen. I read aloud one of my favorite passages from Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book, “The Inner Voice Of Love.” The passage is called
Enter The New Country.

I will read it to Carol tomorrow. It is the new paradigm for  him.

“…you are very much at home in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent all of your days there.

Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become so precious to you…”

He said something in a whisper, but I could not make out what it was. I said, “Ed, you are heading for the new country. Sooner or later, you will find everyone you love there…”