Turning Toward Tincup: A Story of a Home Death

Abstract

The following autoethnography explores the experience of one family as they accompany their mother/wife to a cabin where the mother spends her last days. The author explores her decision to write this story, drawing on her journal and dreams as prompts to do so. The author’s relationship with her mother, past and present, unfolds as the dying process continues. As the mother makes her end-of-life decisions, the family takes on primary responsibilities for this home death. They confront their own feelings about death and each other as they become primary caregivers. The author compares childbirth experiences in the 1940s with what has become unusual—a death in a remote cabin, away from medical care. The story ends as the family completes the process a year later with the physical labor of tending the cemetery grounds.