A tiny love letter to slow dances, Bryan Ferry, and death rattles

Hours before Celso died, he coughed, kind of laughed, and said, “Did you hear that? That’s the death rattle they always talk about. It’s happening.”

One of the most challenging aspects of hospice work is explaining what “the surge” is.

And no one ever believes you.
And they don’t want to listen.
And they try to explain to you how this isn’t that.
And that you don’t know how strong their loved one is.

So you nod and say, “I’m here if you have any questions.”

Within 36 hours, death walks into the room like the stunning suitor he is, a powerful, energetic late-night TV version of Bryan Ferry, hypnotically crooning while he swoops in to interrupt the dance of life.

I spend a lot of time chewing on the parallels between our emotional and physical bodies. Which made me think about the surges in my own life. Those moments where I’m so full of hope after so much anticipatory grief that I can’t imagine the end is near.

Perhaps it’s a relationship that is on life support. A tender look shared between fighting and crying. The last good experience in a bad situation.

For a moment, you think you’ve turned it all around, that you’ll survive, you’ll make this work, and that there’s no way this could be the end.

Then, someone or something walks in the room to escort the person out of your life while humming along to “Flesh & Blood.”

And we can’t believe it.
And we didn’t want to listen to our intuition.
And we try to explain to ourselves how this isn’t that.
And wasn’t our relationship strong enough to survive all of this?

I want to be like Celso, and laugh at my own death rattles, whether they echo through my partnerships, my family dynamics, my friendships, or my professional life. But it’s tough when nothing seems funny, and you can’t find the rhythm.

My first instinct is to race any kind of death to the door so as not to collapse from discomfort or to possibly inconvenience anyone with my existence for one moment longer than they explicitly want me there.

I tell myself I’m just polite or that I can read a room, but maybe I’m ashamed of my dance moves, and Bryan Ferry has always kind of made me nervous. Mostly because he always looks as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. Maybe all of our little deaths do as well.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I should wait for the End Of Things to walk through the door in his impeccable white suit, smile at me, extend a hand, and glide me skillfully across the floor away from several areas of my life.

Maybe a death rattle is something I can dance to?

Maybe I just need to relax and follow along?

Maybe the end of things is always on the beat?

Maybe I don’t have to lead?

I can already hear the needle drop on a song that’s just perfect for a body, a dream, a relationship, or even a home that has reached its denouement.

And I’m not so nervous after all.

“There’s a band playing on the radio
With a rhythm of rhyming guitars
They playing Oh Yeah on the radio
And so came to be our song.”