Cause of death: broken heart.
by littlemissfuneral
When I was working for a funeral home out in Massachusetts there was a situation where a husband and a wife both passed away naturally within twelve hours of each other. I couldn’t help but think the whole concept was utterly romantic.
Now, while working for this funeral home I never much interacted with the families. I was in college and just gaining some experience in the funeral field. Which basically meant I would dress/casket/do make-up for bodies. Which was cool. I didn’t mind. Maybe the situation didn’t bother me as much as it should have because I never formerly met the children of the morbidly romantic dead couple. Or maybe it was because I found out later that both deceased’s were sick that I was able to rationalize their deaths in my mind. Or maybe it was because seeing the two caskets kiddy cornered together just pulled at my heart-strings. Thinking that deep down in their hearts, neither wanted to live without the other. I never thought that I would ever see anything like that again.
And then I met Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith came in to make arrangements for her husband. He was sick in the hospital and passed away on a Tuesday night. I met with her on the following Wednesday for funeral arrangements. Thursday night I got a phone call from police. Mrs. Smith passed away at her home. I have never been more baffled. I mean, I have made pre-arrangements with people knowing that they had a terminal illness and not much time. I’ve hugged people knowing the next time I would see them would be when they were in the embalming room. But this wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t sick. After Mrs. Smith died I heard many people who knew her saying how she and her husband were inseparable. After seeing the photographs her family brought in I’d like to testify that they were correct. It looked like they loved life and that they loved each other deeply.
Just to keep the conversation flowing I want to mention a book that I just purchased and read called “Exit Laughing.” It’s filled with numerous essays that talk about how humor can take the sting out of death. One of the stories titled “Measuring Grief” written by Benita Garvin talked about her parents and how they attempted suicide together. The initial attempt didn’t work, however they both ended up in the hospital as a result. After a little while her father passed away from complications. Benita’s mother awoke in the middle of the night from a drug-induced sleep and let out a cry. Just after midnight. The exact time her father passed away. He was two floors above her in the hospital. (Side note: I know the book is supposed to incorporate humor to help us grieve, I didn’t think that this story personally was the best demonstration of that concept…)
So the big questions. Can you literally die from a broken heart? Can you be so intertwined together with a person that your hearts can actually be one? That you could feel in your soul that moment when they have taken their final breath? Can you will yourself to die? So that you can join your beloved? I guess no one will ever know for sure. Right now I will tell you that I am comforted by an image of the Smith’s dancing together in Heaven. Because if we can’t know for sure that we’ll be together, at least we can have hope. After all, once you get past the sadness, it’s okay to be a little morbidly romantic.
I recently had a situation where the husband passed away and the wife passed about 2 hours later. They had not had the opportunity to inform the wife of her husband of 63 years death. They did everything together for 63 years. In the over 38 years I have been in this profession, I have seen similar situations. Yes, you can die of a broken heart.
It is real…and happens more often than most people would think…I can probably recall a dozen or or instances from my career…I blogged about it here: http://villageundertaker.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/dying-of-a-broken-heart/ and here: http://villageundertaker.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/dying-of-a-broken-heart-pt-ii/
I hope you are getting the day off today! (I’m “on-call”)
Happy Thanksgiving…..
I don’t know if you can will yourself to die, but I absolutely believe that my terminally ill and beloved grandmother chose not to die on the day of my high school graduation, as an act of love for me – she died the next day, and I believe she was waiting so that I oils have my moment (and maybe so she could live until her first grandchild graduated). I think people have more control if these things than we would rationally assume.
I don’t know the answer but I share this morbid romanticism. There is something about dissolving together back into the earth that speaks of love beyond time and life energies flowing directly together and into everything. Thank you for speaking about this!
Cassandra Yonder
BEyond Yonder Death Midwifery
http://www.deathmidwifery.ca
FB group Death Midwifery in Canada (please join) http://www.facebook.com/groups/306940662720202/
You are marvellous and so obviously perfectly suited to your career. I am really enjoying your stories, thank you.