無意間看到Drving Miss Norma相關的一則報道，在Facebook找到他們的主頁，Miss Norma剛剛已經去世了。
主頁上的一句話：Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. -Rumi 很好的概括了在麵對絕症時Miss Norma和她的兒子兒媳的選擇，不是選擇怎樣手術怎樣化療，而是選擇下一站去哪兒。她在人生的最後一站看遍了人生最美的風景。
看完了他們所有的貼子，感動於他們在麵對死亡時的淡定。一邊看一邊想到那種叫荊棘鳥的鳥，它們在最尖利的荊棘刺向自己的心髒時唱出的生命的讚歌。Miss Norma和她的親人總是微笑著，她們穿過美國26個州，去國家公園、去天文館、去農場、去坐熱氣球、去陌生的地方收集所有為生命感動人的目光。每一次經曆都是第一次，也是最後一次。
Being Mortal，向死而生，像書上說的那樣。也許生命可以更好，可是這樣應該就不會有遺憾了吧。RIP, Miss Norma! 同時也為Tim和夫人鼓掌!
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For many years Norma and Leo would listen to Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" at lunch time in their humble home in northern Michigan. Now, this is the rest of her story . . .
During the same two-week period her husband, Leo, was dying, Norma was traveling through her own medical maze.
After having some blood detected in her urine during a routine exam she was sent for an ultrasound, and then another. The day after Leo was admitted to Hospice we learned that she had a large, likely cancerous mass on her uterus.
Two days after Leo died we found ourselves sitting in an OB/GYN office talking about treatment options.
You know the drill: surgery, then radiation and chemo in some order. When the doctor was finished he asked her how she would like to proceed.
A tiny woman at 101 pounds and under five-feet tall, an exhausted Norma looked the young doctor dead in the eye and with the strongest voice she could muster, said, “I’m 90-years-old, I’m hitting the road.”
The doctor and the confused first-day medical student who was shadowing him looked at Tim (her son) and me (her daughter-in-law, Ramie) for some clarification.
We had had time to talk to Norma beforehand about the likelihood that there would be some bad news coming from the doctor. She made it VERY clear to us that she had no interest in any treatment. We “got it” and were in complete support of her decision.
But what next? We couldn’t imagine leaving her in a nursing home, especially after walking down the long halls of the local Tender Care to visit Leo in the last room on the right, reserved by Hospice for the dying. No way.
There is also no way she could live at home alone without Leo. They were truly a well-oiled team of 67 years.
Having recently read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (please put this on your reading list) our best idea was to take her on the road with us. Norma currently is not in pain, her mind is sharp, she loves to travel, and she is remarkably easy to be around.
We explained to the well-meaning doctor and his student that we live in an RV and that we would be taking her wherever she wanted to go. He didn’t hesitate to say, “RIGHT ON!” We asked if he thought us irresponsible for this approach. His reply was telling.
“As doctors,” he said, “we see what cancer treatment looks like every day: ICU, nursing homes, awful side effects. Honestly, there is no guarantee she will survive the initial surgery to remove the mass. You are doing exactly what I would want to do in this situation. Have a fantastic trip!”
Meanwhile, the medical student stood discreetly by the exam room door taking it all in. Until that point she had spent her first day working with pregnant women (the waiting room was filled with them) all thinking about the beginning of life, not the end.
The look on her face during our conversation indicated she had just received the education of a lifetime.
So this is what they don’t teach you in medical school . . .
