LAKE STEVENS — Mary Elizabeth Wright knew the score.
“I know I’m going to die,” she said.
Earlier this year, just weeks before her death, she agreed to be interviewed as part of a documentary on people facing life-ending illness.
The documentary, “In My Time of Dying,” will be screened at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Everett.
Wright, who was 72, had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. There were many things she wanted others to know: That people should prepare for death, that she wasn’t afraid of dying and that hospice services can help people live out the end of their life with dignity.
People who knew her still chuckle at the spirit with which Wright lived, both throughout her life and as her life was ending.
“She golfed, she loved anything to do with the water, she loved to cook and garden,” her niece, Mary Zavala of Lake Stevens, said. “She was a fabulous decorator and she loved to give gifts.”
One photograph of Wright from the 1960s shows her standing atop a pile of snow on Mount Rainier on a sunny summer day. Dressed in bright yellow shorts, she spontaneously strikes a jaunty, movie star-like pose, one hand on her hip, one hand behind her head.
Anyone who sees the snapshot can imagine her laughter the second after she heard the click of the camera’s shutter.
She was a single mom who loved to surprise her son, Desmond, with birthday cakes and trips to the seashore.
She loved to read, and the books and magazines that filled their home were so neatly stacked that it looked like a small library.
When she was 68, she participated in a 25-mile fundraising bike ride, overriding the concerns of her son.
She simply told him, “I’m doing it,” Zavala said.
It was this same spirited woman who three-and-a-half years ago had to coax her son to talk about his end-of-life wishes, just prior to his own death at age 49.
“I said, ‘No, it’s important we talk about this … how you want it handled, ‘ ” Wright said in the documentary. “I’m so glad we had that conversation. If we hadn’t, the grieving would have been horrible. It was bad enough losing my only child.”
Zavala helped Wright move into a new senior housing complex in Lake Stevens in August 2009. She was diagnosed with uterine cancer just six months later.
“She was determined to live life and not gradually fade away,” said Charlie Tarrell, a chaplain for Hospice & Home Care of Snohomish County.
On a visit to her apartment just before Christmas, hospice staff found her apartment “decorated as if she had hired an interior designer,” said Connie Wittren, who directs the hospice group’s foundation. “Everything was perfect.”
On Christmas Eve, hospice staff delivered a motorized scooter to her apartment “which gave her a couple months of total joy and delight,” Wittren said.
She used it to get to bingo games and to maintain her sense of self sufficiency, including continuing to do her own chores.
“She truly got to stay at her home, the way she wanted, and as independent as she could until the day she died,” Wittren said.
When asked if she would be willing to be interviewed for the documentary, Wright didn’t hesitate. The interview took place Jan. 21.
She died Feb. 23, a little more than a month later.
“The greatest gift for her would be to help people understand life and death and not to fear it,” Zavala said.
Wright “was so not afraid,” said Tarrell, the hospice chaplain.
Part of her willingness to talk openly about her pending death stemmed from her deep faith, he said. Yet it was a faith mixed with a personality that could be a little salty and earthy, Tarrell said.
“She had something to say, it’s obvious on the video,” he said. “She was a woman of substance … this unforgettable lady.”
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com
See the film
The documentary, “In My Time of Dying,” which features people facing end-of-life issues, will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Cascade and Rainier rooms, Medical Office Building, 1330 Rockefeller Ave. in Everett. The building is on the Colby Campus of Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.
Following the screening of the documentary, a panel from Providence Hospice & Home Care of Snohomish County, including its medical director, a social worker and a chaplain, will answer questions from the audience on end-of-life issues. For more information, call 425-261-4800.
The documentary also is available online at: www.kbtc.org/page.php?id=505
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