Getting on the Floor to Die and Other Improvisations

When I worked in home hospice, we held a small memorial service every Wednesday after our staffing meeting.  We dimmed the lights, we lit a candle, we said a prayer, and we had the opportunity to share memories or feelings about our patients who died in the previous week.  Recently, I stumbled upon a story from a young nurse that I'd written down in my journal from 2008.  This nurse talked about a very poor man, her patient, during the memorial one week.  He became very restless in the last couple of days of his life - which many people do.  Some people hallucinate or become agitated.  Sometimes we think this is due to physical pain, sometimes we think this is due to emotional pain.  But this man, in his restlessness, kept getting on the floor.  His sister and her family were caring for him and they felt incredibly frusturated with what seemed to them like his 'misbehavior.'  Almost like a toddler who won't stay in bed.  Almost like, "why, after all we are doing for you, won't you stay put like a good boy?"  The nurse pondered it over those couple of days - something about this man touched her. 

After two days of him awkwardly and half-comatose finding his way somehow, to the floor, the nurse had a burst of intuition.  "This man wants to die on the floor," she thought.  So when she was next there and he was on the floor, she got on the floor with him.  And she held him for an hour; put her arms around him right there on the floor.  And he died.  She was right -  he wanted to be on the floor to die and she was able to hear the message he couldn't speak.  To look at the evidence before her and honor it.  You're not supposed to die on the floor - maybe that seems to lack dignity.  But in my time in hospice, this is one of the most loving stories, one of the most diginifed stories, I heard.

Improvisation is what comes to mind. It reminds me of a This American Life segment from 2014 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/532/magic-words?act=2  A woman and her husband (who are comedic actors by profession) are caregivers for the wife's mother, who has Alzheimer's.  The mother says things like, "Look at those monkeys in the backyard."  And instead of saying "there are no monkeys in the backyard," the couple learned to use their acting/improv skills with her.  The husband replies, "Pretty early in the season for monkeys."   He says to her, "If you see any more we'll try to catch one and bring it in."  She replies, "you can't bring monkeys in the house."  "Well," he says, "You can if you put pants on them."  She laughs.   Improvising vastly improved her quality of life.  And theirs.  They didn't argue and get in power struggles with her.  She could even access her sense of humor.

In improv comedy, there are a couple of rules: 1) Step into their world (your fellow actor) and 2) your only answer is "yes, and...". 

Lots of things happen in life that aren't 'supposed' to happen and aren't part of our life script.   When life deviates from our play, sometimes we step out of reality with reality.  For example, people aren't supposed to die on the floor.  For another example, I was not supposed to get divorced.  But supposed to is not the same as reality.  Now, I have to improvise.  I got divorced.  Yes, and... 

When we say 'no, but' to life, we are usually in for a period of deep frustration and even grief.  Here are some other examples I see of times we tend to say 'no, but..'  rather than, "yes, and...": 
when our child is having social or educational problems at school,
when our adult child makes a decision we disagree with,
when our brother owes us $200 from Christmas,
when our sister gets drunk and drives home from the work party,
when someone we love gets diagnosed with cancer.

How would our reactions change and even be more helpful if we said, "Yes, and" to the reality of those situations?  Would we say and think differently?  I think we would.  I think our power struggles would cease.  I think we feel less like we were beating our heads against the wall.

As I'm writing this, I'm even thinking that improvising applies to good things that present themselves to us, that we try for various reasons to deny - things that feel like a risk - a job change, a move, falling in love.  We are often overly and uselessly confused giving life a 'no, but,'  when the evidence points us to 'yes, and...' 

Look, I know life is complex and the signs aren't always as clear as the man who kept getting on the floor to die.  Sometimes we need a helper-  a friend, a nurse, a counselor, a sister, to help us look at the evidence of our lives and understand where to find the Yes, and...  This is when we can ask for help - when we can literally ask, or write down our thoughts, or pray or meditate and to our best to enter the world as it presents itself to us.  It's do-able - we just have to pay attention and let go of our 'supposed to's'.

And finally, it's important to remember, that if you bring the monkey in the house, it's much better for everybody if he's wearing pants.