Rest easy? Kate Mackrell witnesses two deaths

‘Then someone said that we were singing him home.’

In summer 2009 my mother discovered that she had a fast-moving, incurable, form of lung cancer. She had lived in Switzerland for many years and she was appalled that assisted dying was not available in Canada.

I was at Yearly Meeting Gathering in York when I heard the news; I spent the afternoon (in which the momentous decision about equal marriage was reached) holed up in my dorm room, trying to book a flight back to Canada, to be in time for her death.

I failed: she died five days later, with no goodbye, with me still in the UK. She had begged my sister-in-law to help her die, and my sister-in-law refused. But my mother was a doctor. I believe she found a way to end her life and took the chance when she could. I felt as though my life was a piece of paper, which other people could rip at random.

Assisted dying eventually became possible in Canada, in 2016.

I had a very different experience at the death of Dick Preston, of Hamilton Meeting (in Ontario), last month. I knew Dick from an online book club I’d attended involving indigenous Canadian writers, and I liked him. Dick was ninety-three; tumours had been found in his brain, and he chose that it was time to die.

‘It was beautiful. I felt very sad, but experienced none of the shock or anxiety that had accompanied previous deaths.’

A Meeting was held to surround the time of his death, holding Dick and his family in the Light. There were about forty of us present on Zoom. I couldn’t see clearly how many were at the Meeting house – maybe thirty? Dick and his family were, of course, not there. 

We held the silence for the first half hour. On the hour when he was to die, someone, possibly from one of the indigenous communities Dick had worked with, ran his hand around the rim of a singing bowl and said that he was a great man. We continued in silence. Then someone said that we were singing him home. At the end, we departed.

It was beautiful. I did feel very sad, but I experienced none of the shock or anxiety that had accompanied previous deaths I had been close to. I could focus on Dick, his wife, and one of his daughters, who I also knew from the book club. I spent the time remembering the joy I had had in knowing Dick, silently saying goodbye, and holding him and his family in the Light. I felt a great sense of peace.

I am very glad he was able to choose to die when he did, and that Quaker worship was able to hold him and his family the way we did.

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Comments

How heartbreaking not be able to have any kind of farewell at the death of your mother, Kate! I’m so sorry.

Regarding Dick’s death:
Those of us in the Meetinghouse and online held Betty and the rest of the family, most of whom were present with Dick at his death, in the Light as the journeyed forth wearing his new Cree moccasins, made for him for this purpose.

However, it was jarring for me to have someone with a singing bowl (it was not an indigenous person – nor is the singing bowl associated with Cree culture – nor something I associate with Dick at all), and visible accoutrements of other faith traditions in our Quaker Meetinghouse in a Quaker Meeting for worship. It felt disrespectful of our faith, our space, and our traditions. I am not the only one who felt this, but perhaps others were okay with it. I did not hear anyone say we were ‘singing him home’, nor did I feel that was happening.

It was a new thing for our Meeting: to hold a Meeting in the Meetinghouse to hold the departure of a Friend in the Light (though it had been done previously in a smaller way in someone’s garden for another Friend), but I imagine this is only the beginning. There are various views on the topic of Medical Assistance in Dying; we are not as one.

By Carol Leigh Wehking on 19th February 2025 - 21:53

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Friends are not as one on many issues, but we hold each other’s differences with respect for the views of ‘the other’ not being always the same as ‘mine’.  I once worked alongside an American colleague, a non-believer, who sent his son to a Quaker school which was to be very formative for the child in his later life’s work in the Middle East.  The school’s motto was ‘Teach Tolerance’.

By Finola O'Sullivan on 23rd February 2025 - 18:54

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I truly regret if I have misheard or misremembered anything that occurred at this meeting.

I did find it a beautiful experience and am sad if I have in any way misrepresented it.

By katemackrell on 7th March 2025 - 13:03

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