Norman Torrey Waag 1947 – 2024
Jun 21, 2024
Late in his medical journey, when they inserted an IV, or poked another tube into a tender part of his body, he lost the masculine stoicism he’d carried proudly through his life. He would yelp in anguish and push medical staff away, telling them, No, No, No.
Nephrostomy tube, catheter, stent, pacemaker, PICC line, cardioversion, the works. He got it all in the battle to keep him alive, although in a diminished state. Ultimately, that was not his destiny. He understood this, and escaped.
A magical life has a magical end; he departed on Lord Rama’s birthday, with thunder in the heavens, in his own bed, with his beloved wife and dog beside him.
When the doctor urged us to return to the hospital for that last time, we felt like combat veterans, compelled to return to war. We had to go back, it had become what we knew, and we were trying to get it right.
In some ways we did. Lovely young nurses sat with him because of his inclination to leave the ward, half-dressed in his street clothes, or, imperiously naked and yelling. Those were bad moments, but they were also pure, the authentic rebellion of a freedom-loving soul.
I came into the room and a willowy young brunette was sitting beside his bed. “Linda, this is Abby,” he said, his voice rich with warmth, “and she wants to go to Italy, too!”
On an earlier hospital stay, I watched a girl with a crooked face bring him his meal. Suddenly she was smiling at him shyly. I turned to see him beaming at her. Our nurse friend laughed when I told her this story. “Coping mechanisms,” she commented.
During our last hospitalization he was surrounded by caring and kind people, from the wonderfully present doctors to the male student nurse who watched women’s basketball games with us.
Everyone who had the time was interested in him. He recited the poetry of Hafez to the palliative care staff: “We all rise each morning to labor on the Earth’s field. No one does not lift a great pack.”
The grief I live with now is a gentle, perpetual ache in my soul. A grief that is a profound reminder of the great adventure that awaits us all.
I know he had to go on ahead, and I know he waits for me, just around the corner of the river, basking in a sea of consciousness and bliss.
Today, the leaves of the cottonwood and maple trees dance softly in the breeze. Sparrows, cardinals and chickadees chatter in the garden. The magenta spirea bush waits patiently for me to plant it in the dark, worm-filled Iowa dirt.
Does Death Really Exist? Like so many of Tor’s books, this odd little guide, by Swami Muktananda, fell off the shelf and into my hands. At last, I can really read these spiritual, intellectual works, opening them to find the perfect words for this moment.
How a person dies is the fruit of the way in which he has lived. It is said that if you want to attain anything in this life, attain a good death…O God, if You really want to give me something, give me a good death, a sweet death.
What is it like to meet your end with a vast library of Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Ancient Egyptian teachings on the subject, yet no longer be able to read them? I suppose you rely on the accumulated wisdom of your many lifetimes, and your own personal awakenings.
This life is but one day in the life of the Soul. Tor taught me this, and it gives me great comfort. It’s what I told the caregivers when I shared that he hadn’t eaten in a few days, not really at the end of our hospital stay, and not when we came home, either.
That’s when they said it was time for Hospice to assess him.
Always a fast learner, Tor grabbed that opportunity. As pneumonia came on and his breathing became labored, he swallowed the morphine and raced into the afterlife. Whoosh! Like a kid on a slide.
Photo from Waag Family archives.
Survision Creative 