My generation is reinventing how to die, and
Maryann Whitesell is leading the way! When Maryann was diagnosed with terminal cancer throughout her abdominal region in October 2013, the doctors told her she might have another nine months left to live.
Anyone else would have been devastated with a terminal diagnosis, but not Maryann! A former nun in a teaching order and a devout Christian, she was ready to be received in heaven, although she hoped she could make it through Christmas.
She gave hospice instructions to not give her pain medicine. She wanted to feel how it felt to die, as Jesus died. Moreover, she wanted to be interviewed on video so the world could know her beliefs and her experience of dying.
Maryann was greatly loved by so many people. Daily they filled her home. The cell phone and home phones rang constantly. I waited until she, her sister Pat, and I were alone in the house and interviewed her in this video Dec. 20, 2013, with Pat at the camera. It's unedited.
The Last Chapter, Part 1, Interview with Maryann
Over the next two weeks, Maryann grew weaker and sleepier as her liver began shutting down. She accepted the hospice nurse's offering of a medicine to stop the vomiting and Roxinol, a brand of morphine to keep down the pain.
Maryann asked that I return while she was still able to stay awake. This next interview was on January 3, 2014, fourteen days after the first one. She's in a hospital bed in the living room. The sound in the background is her oxygen tank.
The Last Chapter, Part 2, Interview with Maryann Whitesell
On January 7th, when I visited her, she could only whisper, but she wanted me to know what she was experiencing. She woke long enough to say, "This is hard" She died early this morning, January 8, 2014. Many of her family members were staying with her.
We can all remember Maryann for her great faith that God is ready
to receive her, her excitement to go, and her understanding that she's
finished her work on this earth. Through these interviews, she's taught us how to die with dignity and grace, with courage and faith.
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