Legacies from the Living Room: A Love-Grief Equation

Book excerpt: This is an emotionally powerful love story about family, commitment, and living in the midst of dying. It is a unique memoir written not by an individual who is dying, but by a spouse faced with caregiving and loss. It is targeted for family members facing the terminal illness of their loved one as well as the professionals who are responsible to care for them. Debbie Oliver’s husband David is diagnosed with stage IV metastatic cancer and she realizes that the life as they know it is over. Debbie experiences fear about how he will die, how she will cope, and how she will go on without him. David focuses on living rather than dying, choosing to teach others about his experience and leading the family to focus on making memories. David and Debbie create 26 YouTube videos related to their experience that become a teaching tool to educate medical students, health care professionals, friends and family. An Associated Press story on David and the videos leads to an appearance on CBS This Morning. The videos encourage the family to talk about things, and not to hide from the cancer, they provide social support from friends and strangers, and they facilitate conversations within classrooms and between people all over the world. After David finishes chemo, it’s time to attack his bucket list. The family travels extensively from Europe to the Artic Circle. Debbie finds these trips bittersweet, knowing she will someday be traveling alone. David coins the acronym, HOPE—to die at Home, surrounded by Others, Pain-free, and Excited until the end to describe his goals for the end of his days. The cancer reappears but David decides against more chemo, and he and Debbie realize that this is the real moment he’s looking death in the face. The caregiving burden grows and the kids start coming over to help. David starts saying his goodbyes. While the last days are terribly sad, they also leave Debbie with sweet moments she’ll never forget. Debbie does everything she can to let him die at home, surrounded by others, pain free and excited until the end. She gathers his loved ones, does her best to keep him comfortable, and in the end says goodbye and thanks him for loving her. Before David dies, he writes 26 letters to friends and family to be mailed after he passes. They are each personal, and emotional. David chooses to have his ashes scattered at Loch Vale Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. He has Debbie plan the trip before he passes so he can picture it happening, and knows it will officially take place. Life goes on despite David’s loss leaving a big hole in Debbie’s life. She thrives on her family time, accepts that it’s okay to be sad, and moves on in a way that doesn’t let David go, but doesn’t keep her mired only in the grief. Debbie learns to do things alone that she and David had always done together. She joins a support group as she tries to figure out her new identity, and the whole family leans on each other as they continue to process their loss. Debbie has things she needs to say to David and writes him an emotional letter outlining the things she misses and the ways she has handled and mishandled her grief. Her letter is a moving description of how she is trying to rebuild her life, following David’s advice to focus on the love to manage the grief. The story ends as Debbie builds a new house behind her old one and reflects on how she has learned to look back at the past but live in her new world today.