The Act of Dying

I once worked in the call center of a doll company that created twin dolls, dolls that were made to resemble a child or photo. People loved these dolls and spent hundreds of dollars in clothing and accessories for them.

When the doll had some sort of defect, however, the customer could send the doll to the Doll Hospital and have it repaired.

One day a lady on the phone wished to know the status of her niece’s twin doll that had been admitted into the doll hospital. I retrieved her order and told her that the doll had shipped the day before.

She was elated and profusely thanked me. I had made her day, she said, considering that her sister was in a coma. The correlation was loose as sand until the quiver in her voice and tears I couldn’t see helped me understand the mix she was in.

The backstory was that her sister lay in the hospital brain dead and without hope of recovery. She was young—forty-seven—but crept upon by the unfairness of life, leveled by an aneurysm in the head. The doctors were conclusive about it.

Meanwhile, the ill lady’s granddaughter, or her little girl’s doll , had also fallen “ill” and needed a hospital stay, which had near-devastated the little girl. So the status of the doll’s return was not only important, it was symbolic.

The caller fought back her tears and strained not to fall apart on the phone; it was just as tough for me to remain professional. I deeply sympathized with her. Nevertheless, she was thrilled to know that the doll was coming home. I begged God that somehow the girl’s mother would also wake up and go home to her precious doll.

One day we all will 'go home'. Truthfully, home is where we would want to be if we had the opportunity to choose. Yet it’s getting home that none of us wants or wants for those we love, just as this lady was content but grieved that her sister should die then.

“We’re ready for her to go be with the Lord,” she said. I’m sure she did but like a child feverish and aching and pitifully moaning, the needle never quite signals the relief we want although relief is what it bears.

I rode through a cemetery later and felt again how strangely serene a place it is. I pondered many things: how interesting the headstones, dates, and captions; how many the reasons for people being there; how sprite were the young and grave the old; how many had found home and how many were banging the doors.

How long until I joined them…