Watching

As health is part of life, declining health most often precedes death. When death is expected, we watch for it, we accompany the dying to their next phase. In 2019 I had my first experience watching. My sister was losing her battle with bile duct cancer. I got the call late on Saturday evening August thirty-first while chaperoning an overnight at my son’s youth symphony retreat. Fighting through tears the next morning, I boarded a plane to Boston to be with my sister, to watch as she left the world we shared to go to another time and place. Today we might express it as sitting vigil at a loved one’s deathbed. But, in 19th century western Massachusetts, where much of my family is from, they watched, and so I watched with my sister. Since illness and death came often in the 19th century, watching was a common occurrence passed from one generation to the next.

In 1860, Emma Frances Merrill was fifteen years old, attending Shelburne Falls Academy, and was as much a teenager in spirit as any today, dedicated to socializing with her friends each day and interested in the latest fashion and trends. As a part of everyday life in the 1800s, Emma also had to learn about watching as friends, family, and community members became ill and passed away. On April 4, 1860, she wrote, “Mother is going to watch with Mrs. Fairbanks to night. She is very low.” Watch with.  Ah. This was a partnership with the dying. A month later, on May tenth, Emma watched for the first time, “I watched with Mrs Fairbanks last night until after four o’clock. something I never did before. after I came home I slept until two this afternoon.” Watching seemed to be not only family and close friends sitting vigil, but a community responsibility that Emma, at fifteen, was finally old enough to learn about and participate in. Emma’s youth (and apparent ability to compartmentalize the different aspects of her life) was ever present for in the next sentence of her diary entry for that day she reports, “after school wrote to Mattie. Flora V., Delia and I walked a little way after tea.”

Emma’s mother Roxana continued to watch with Mrs Fairbanks, and Emma continued to take her turn doing so as well, at least through July of 1860. Joanna Flagg Fairbanks eventually died in March of 1861 (no cause of death indicated). Emma continued her compassion for the ill throughout 1860. She writes of visiting her friend Mary Prime. “Poor girl she is in consumption. She is beautiful—so thin and delicate. she cannot live long—she has only come back to die-” Emma’s sister Ellen had died five years earlier of consumption (tuberculosis) and so Emma must have had great compassion and empathy for those sick from this destructive wasting disease, especially for a friend of her own age. She, however, never watches with Mary Prime. Emma “called on” Mary, “staid with” Mary, and “went up to see” Mary. She did so at least nine times in 1860. Was “watching” a ritual reserved only for the older generation? Was this term already dated at this time? Or did Emma never actually watch with Mary? October 10, 1860. "She is at rest! I will not weep for her,” Emma confides.

At the beginning of 1871, Emma, then twenty-six years old, was unmarried and living at home with her parents. Her father Zebulon Field, at the age of sixty-three was in declining health due to a mysterious illness the doctors hadn’t yet been able to diagnose, or did not disclose to the family. “New Year’s Day finds us in sickness. My father has been confined to the house several weeks. He is not as well to day has had a number of calls this P.M. and eve—” Emma uses the word “calls” to describe the visits her father was receiving that January. They weren't yet watching. When did watching start? Was it at the point where doctors were sure they could offer no more beneficial care for recovery? 

On Wednesday, January eighteenth Emma laments that she could “better bear” the truth of the disease rather than the unknown. Still, the doctor indicated that he had hope for Zebulon. On January nineteenth, his sixty-fourth birthday, Zebulon drew up his last will and testament, the first indication that he was concerned about his approaching meeting with death. On the next two days, Emma writes that her father was given opiates to help relieve the pain and allow him to sleep. On January twenty-first, “Cousin Ed called” and “Mr. Swan watched with Pa to night.” This is the beginning of the watching, the first indication that death was imminent for Zebulon Field.

From January through April, Zebulon had good days on which Emma described him as comfortable but tired, and bad days on which the doctor needed to administer “an emetic” to relieve his “sour stomach.” All through February, “Pa has been slowly falling. He is now quite low though his strength holds out wonderfully.” The watchers continued to arrive at Zebulon’s bedside. Uncle Henry watched throughout much of this time. On March 2nd, Dr Trow checked in on Emma's father and communicated the worst—he was not able to help him at all. Mr. A.O. Bardwell watched. Mr. Reuben Streeter watched. Dr. Rankin watched. Ed Comstock watched. Capt. Richmond watched. Mr. D.C. Bardwell watched. 

By the end of March Zebulon Field’s body continued to fail, but his mind remained strong. He had enough energy on March twenty-seventh to speak with A.K. Hawks “about the water power here and the prospect of a new cotton factory.” As a former textile mill owner, head librarian, stone mason, and town trial justice, and “a man of very decided opinions,” Zebulon likely wanted to make sure the future of Shelburne Falls was as secure as possible once he was no longer able to play a part in paving a path for the village. 

On March thirty-first, Mr. Merrill Whitney was expected to watch, but “he didn’t make an appearance.” Oh, so was watching, maybe, a scheduled event, much like a meal train for a family facing illness and recovery in this day and age? Mr. C.C. Tolman watched. Then Merrill Whitney did actually watch. Mr. G.B. Hayes watched. Mr. J.B. Whitney watched. On April 7, “Aunt Electa called.” Was watching with the dying a single gender event? Did men only watch with men, women watch with women? 

Nearing the middle of April, Zebulon’s time was drawing near and he “was requiring very close care.” Mr. P. “consented to watch.”  Emma grew emotional seeing her father go through the dying process. “These terrible days of weary watching and waiting by the bedside of our loved one surely slowly passing beyond our sight or reach. Nothing about it seems right.” Mr. Bates watched. April fourteenth. “Pa was a little wandering though very weak and conscious that he had lost himself for a moment.” Mr. L.A. Ball watched. Brooks Whitney watched. G. F. Ball watched. April twentieth. Zebulon requested some oyster broth and “took a little quantity in a cup and loved it.” April twenty-first. No pulse in his wrist and the laudanum “has not produced any apparent effect.” April twenty-second. Zebulon “was not afraid to go.” Then on April twenty-fourth at 5:40AM, “Uncle Henry called us and we stood and watched our dear one as his life ebbed away until the angels took him.” Zebulon was gone.

As Zebulon's breath grew shorter and shorter in those early morning hours of April 24, 1871, so did my sister in the wee hours of September 6, 2019. And “without a struggle or a sigh” her spirit fled just as the soul of Zebulon, her great, great grandfather, had emerged from his body to travel to another dimension. In the predawn of that day in 1871, Zebulon’s wife Roxana, his daughter Emma, and his youngest brother Henry were with him. In the same hour of that late summer day in 2019, her husband, her son, his girlfriend, and I watched with my sister. Our dear Aunt Mary and cousins Jennifer and Jonathan came from California to watch with us as well. We shared the sensation of my sister's energy fleeing to peacefulness as she joined Zebulon in the afterworld. Countless friends had watched with my sister, including our soul sister Wendy, virtually watching from Florida. Times have changed in one hundred fifty years, but dying has not. Dying is a ritual that encompasses community. Community and family watch over us all to maintain the sacredness of this imminent event.