Cancer Diary: Spiritual Aspects of Dying - Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites)




Whether you call it Anointing of the sick, Sacrament of Extreme Unction, or Last Rites, the ceremony of a priest spending time at the end of a dying (from cancer or anything else) parishioner's life can bring peace to family and friends. I am pretty certain that Carl held on until that happened. He was mostly in some other world, not comatose but not present to those around him either, during his last couple of days. He had all the signs of being in the last hours (not days) of life but seemed to hold on. He knew our priest would come on Sunday morning. 

On Sunday morning, I alerted the priest to the near-comatose state of Carl. He responded, "We will take him as he is." 

However, the minute he spoke Carl's name, Carl's eyes flew open, and he smiled, responding with cheer and apparent happiness, "Oh, hi!"

Carl surprisingly followed the rite although it was clearly difficult for him at times to fight to stay in the present. However, that is clearly where he wanted to be. 

Carl died early Monday morning, less than 24 hours later. He floated off into some other place after the priest left, but he seemed happy there, if a relaxed body is any indication. He spoke no further, but we knew he was with us in some realm. We assumed he could hear us (hearing, we are told, lasts for a bit even after death), and so we spoke to him and played his favorite music quietly. 

Carl had a gentle death, with all his family asleep in the room with him (even his cats). The sacrament appeared to ease him into that. 

Rites, whether Catholic, some other religious preference (Carl, by the way, is not Catholic, though I am, as are some other members of the family), or just a family or individually developed rite, ceremonial act, or tradition, can help destress stressful situations. Death certainly can be one of those, but it does not need to be.


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Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts: Cancer Diary. 

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