Midwives For the Coming and the Going

One of my guilty pleasures each Monday morning is watching the episode of “Call the Midwife” recorded the night before when I get home from the gym.  I can’t think of any other program on TV that takes me through as many emotional twists in one hour.  Each vivid representation of a baby’s birth catapults me back in time to the three time’s I’ve experienced birth firsthand; each so indelibly impressed in my being.

Each time I see a mother simultaneously fighting with and working with her body to send forth a new life, I feel my own gut tighten and tense as if I’m right there giving birth like my first two trips to the delivery room when I birthed my own babies.  I also feel the joy of seeing the miracle from the perspective of an onlooker as when my grandson Seth was born.

Memories of the moment of childbirth are almost always those kept as special.   Memories of labor are not as endearing, but all mothers seem to remember them and when the subject comes up, most tend to pipe in with their experiences sharing the duration, the pain, the relief if and when anesthesia was administered and finally the joy of holding that new life for the first time.  At that sublime moment the struggle into life seems well worth the price.

These past few weeks I’ve been reminded that passing on from this life works much the same way.  The real difference lies in just how much faith and confidence you have in whether there is a life that follows this one.  I am one who chooses to believe.

The other day I received a text from my friend Wendy letting me know she and her brother were by their father’s bedside in a Hospice center, attending to his final needs and waiting for his life to end.  When I checked in with her the next morning she told me how phenomenal the volunteers were in assisting them with all the stuff that needs to be done as someone prepares to pass on to their next life.  It occurred to me that as trained and experienced specialists, Hospice volunteers are in many ways midwives from this life to the next.

It almost makes me wonder if there is a group of folks on the other side sharing a pot of coffee (or whatever the eternal equivalent is) discussing their “birth stories”.  The processes seem very similar; a period of pain and uncertainty culminating in a change of status; from one state to another with ultimate awe and joy at the new life.  This time though, the men will have a chance to share their stories as well!