Most of us have heard the term “exit strategy,” whether it focused on an endgame plan of action for a business, or how to get out of a quagmire in warfare. Often there is a worst-case result in either of those applications; hence, the outcome involves not much more than simply saving face. But, occasionally a properly-planned exit strategy can result in the highly successful achievement of an objective worth ones attention.
The first time I think I ever uttered the phrase “exit strategy” had nothing to do with either business or a military conflict. The words fell out of my mouth, surprising the hell out of me and the terminally-ill friend to whom I was speaking. Although the occasion was more than 13 years ago, I can remember it as clearly and dramatically as if it happened yesterday.
The friend was a 40-something, highly active woman, who spent almost every summer hiking for miles in the backcountry of the Sierra Mountains in California, sometimes with a friend and a pair of llamas; other times going solo. Everyone was shocked to hear she had been diagnosed with a metastatic brain tumor. That doesn’t happen, we think, to young, energetic, healthy people.
Oh, but it does.
To slow the progress of the cancer, my friend was put on a hefty dose of steroids. One of the many, difficult side effects of steroid treatment is swelling due to water retention; in her case, ballooning her head until it was the size of a basketball. Because of that, I heard through our small community grapevine that she was refusing any visitors. I went to the hospital anyway, sneaking by the nurse’s station to avoid being thrown out.
Standing at the door to her room, I only got a half-second glimpse at my friend’s physical condition when her hands went up to her face, covering it. “I don’t want to see anyone,” she said with more strength in her voice than I anticipated.
“That’s okay with me,” I answered, taking a chance that my friend would relent. I immediately spun around to face the hallway. “I’ll just grab a chair and look away. I care about you and just want to talk for a while, if that’s okay.” I pulled a chair up next to her bed and faced the window, where I could gaze out at the snowcapped Sierras. “Everyone cares about you and no one cares what you look like. Let’s just talk for however long you want, okay?”
And, talk we did, uninterrupted for nearly an hour. It was as if the Universe was giving us this time to re-examine some long-held belief systems, in both of us. We discussed beliefs about the mystery of dis-ease, the nature of a conscious death, the afterlife, and the importance of families and good, nurturing friends.
I’d only known this courageous woman for a few years, so it didn’t shock me when she said, “I’m not afraid to die, you know.”
“Okay,” I responded. “What are you afraid of, other than being seen by anyone right now?”
“I’m terrified of what it’s going to look like between now and then, whether I’ll be in so much pain that no one can manage it. I’m afraid to lose control over my body.”
Most humans, in my experience and research for this book, have varying degrees of thanatophobia (the fear of death), and that is certainly true for most everyone in our American culture. We rarely contemplate the inevitable end-of-physical-life, whether due to religious beliefs or an agnostic’s fear of the unknown.
That’s when I said it.
“Okay. Let’s make an exit strategy, shall we? Let’s you and me imagine exactly how you want it to look from this moment on, right up to the second you are ready to make your transition. Who do you want with you? Where do you want to be? How do you want to feel? How does that sound to you?”
It didn’t take my friend long to get it and by getting it I mean that she was willing to open to the possibility that, through using her brilliant and colorful imagination, she could have some say in her physical exit from this realm.
There is no need to go into the details of my intrepid friend’s exit strategy here. What is important is that her death, which I prefer to call her transition, occurred three months later, and it was a perfect, graceful photocopy of the fantasy we created together that day, right down to the time, place, and mental state she was in when her last breath blew mystical wind beneath her wings.
