MJ and the Three-Olive Martini

On a cold, February morning in 2025 I arrived at a residence in northwest Calgary to meet a new client named MJ.  MJ’s son had called me. He was at his wit’s end. MJ was becoming more frail and unhappy as she approached her 91st year. She regularly turned away help and sent care companions packing. MJ’s son had heard about me through a friend, and thought that maybe a death doula could bring some comfort and peace of mind to his mom. 

When I entered the suite for the first time, MJ was perched in an elegant, white recliner, with at least 20 feet of oxygen cable winding and twisting away from her, finding its way to a hissing oxygen machine. MJ had been tied to oxygen tubes for over fifteen years. COPD had taken a good portion of her when I met her. MJ was tiny and drawn – almost swallowed up by the recliner. She was covered in a heated blanket. Although the sun was shining, the blinds were drawn and there was newspaper up on the windows. It wasn’t a cheery place. 

“Who are you?”, MJ croaked between breaths. I introduced myself and sat down on a nearby sofa.

MJ tolerated my presence and warmed up a bit.  We even made plans for me to return. By the time I was in my car, halfway home, she had called and told me not to come any more. Why? Because she was dying.
And she was “evil” – a bad person to the core, she said. 
And she had no use for me.
That was Tuesday.

On Thursday she called me and asked when I was coming again, and why couldn’t it be TODAY? I told her I could come the next day – a Friday. A few hours later, she had cancelled Friday. This happened several times. On the days she let me stay, I brought wine, good cheese and gourmet crackers as offerings. MJ appreciated the snacks but maintained a mercurial opinion about my presence.

By the end of February MJ’s son and I had agreed that perhaps it wasn’t the right time. I withdrew, but there was something about MJ. I couldn’t forget her.

In May I wrote an email to MJ’s son, asking if I could try again. He told me to give it my best shot, and wished me luck. If he was a gambler he most surely would have placed bets against me lasting an hour.

This time, when I showed up, I got a, “What are you doing here?” followed by, “You shouldn’t have come. I’m cursed, you see, and I’m rotten to the core.”

But MJ let me stay. And then she asked when I could come again. When I said “next week” she scowled and asked if I could come sooner. From then on I visited MJ every couple of days. 

In early June, MJ applied for and was approved for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), but she wasn’t quite ready to go. She was tortured by her conviction that she was a terrible and cursed person. She regularly told me she was evil. I couldn’t see any sign of that myself. There were no bad vibes and no evil deeds being done – at least not out in the open. I told MJ that if she was truly a bad person she’d have to do a better job of demonstrating it.
MJ told me to leave and said that the next time I came, I’d better bring chocolate.

There was also a fairly predictable sequence of MJ calling me to tell me that she was dying right that very minute. According to MJ’s son, there hadn’t been a time in recent memory when MJ was NOT dying imminently. 

Whenever MJ phoned me to tell me she was dying I would ask her if I should come over. She’d tell me that it was too late – she would be dead by the time I arrived.
More than once I called her bluff. I’d knock on her door and enter her suite, and she would give me stink-eye and ask why I was there.
“I came to see if you really kicked off, this time.”
“Very funny. Go and open the drawer by my bed and get me some chocolate.”
After chocolate, we would commiserate on the state of things, and how hard it is to get ready to die, and how horrible it is to be stuck in a body that doesn’t work anymore. We figured out that MJ’s frantic moments when she thought she was dying were very real panic attacks.

I spent a lot of time thinking about MJ, and how someone could spend their life interpreting things in the worst way possible, and how it must have meant that so many lovely things were missed along the way. It takes a lot of energy to be so angry all the time. MJ was furious – at life. She ranted, railed, raved, manipulated and scorned. She raged, she scowled and she despaired. There wasn’t a moment with MJ where she wasn’t wound up, trying to create some drama. At least, initially. For quite some time, I listened and observed. And through all the noise, I saw the funny MJ, the incredibly smart and talented MJ, the sweet MJ who knew all the names of the staff and carers in her building and knew something about each of their lives. Honestly I adored her. She challenged me and she demanded my best. Something told me that MJ wanted to be challenged as well.

We explored MJ’s fears and the pervasive “curse”. Every time I asked MJ to name something terrible that she had done that would merit being cursed for eternity, the example she would give me was something any of us could have done. Faulty judgement moments, things we have all said that we wish we could take back, times we wished we had been kinder to someone. All of MJ’s “mistakes” were of the everyday human variety. MJ was genuinely surprised when I suggested that all of us have made similar errors in our lives, but not all of us lived with deep-seated guilt and shame. Was it possible that whatever we do in life, we are all just doing the best we can, and when we know better, we do better?

I asked MJ to look in her mirror and say “I love you.” At first she mumbled it. After a while, she would look at herself in the mirror and smile. Sometimes she would embellish – as in, “I love you, and I really like your eyes.” I honestly felt that it was one of the bravest acts I had ever seen: someone who really hated themselves, willing to take a chance on loving themselves.

As the summer flew by, MJ became weaker. Her weight had fallen to under seventy pounds. Her breathing was more laboured. She had lost interest in eating. She had even lost interest in olives and chocolate – her two favourite foods. I told her son that I didn’t think she had much longer. MJ knew it as well. By early August, MJ wanted to pick a date for MAiD. When she found out I was going on vacation she sulked and said that this was proof the curse had never left her. Up to that point I had never been accused of ruining someone’s death plans. As upset as she was, she still managed to blurt out that she hoped I had a good time. 

While on vacation I was almost convinced that MJ was going to pass away out of spite before I returned. But MJ hung on until I got back from holidays. At my next visit, she took a bit longer to warm up, and said I had been “gone too long.”

In the days that followed we started planning MJ’s last day. MJ didn’t want any fuss at all. She did have a favourite song, “Westering Home” by Kenneth McKeller. I told her I would play it when the time came. MJ wanted to be cremated and then blown into a Pincher Creek wind. The very thought made her laugh. 

She was starting to have hope that the “other side” wouldn’t be so bad. I told her that she needed to give me a sign that she’d “made it to heaven.”

What would it be?

We entertained a few ideas. Butterflies are a pretty common sign. We thought it had to be more distinct than a butterfly or a rainbow.
“A jar of pickles.” We both cracked up.
“A Pincher Creek Wind.”
MJ said, “Martinis with three olives are my favourite drink.”
“Ok, that will be the sign.” I said.

“Really? A MARTINI?” MJ laughed. “Done deal.”
“But it has to have three olives, OK?”
“Got it. Three olives.”

We had tears from laughing so hard. But it stuck. A martini with three olives was going to be the sign from the afterlife, from MJ to me. At every visit after that, we reminded each other about the three-olive martini.

One day, in September, I came to visit MJ and she was lying in bed, motionless. She had no energy left. She couldn’t move. She told me that it was time to call the MAiD team and pick a date. I made the call.

I spent many hours with MJ in the week before her death. Sometimes she was in a great deal of pain. Sometimes she was philosophical. Sometimes she was a bit confused, and sometimes she was so exhausted I had to climb into the other side of her big queen bed and lay my face right down on the pillow next to her so we could make eye contact. In those hours we just held hands and said nothing. 

On the day of the provision I arrived early. MJ was still in bed . The first thing she said to me was “Go away.” It was the most “MJ” of greetings.
 
MJ’s lovely daughter-in-law had spent the night with her. It was a vigil and the honouring of someone’s last day on earth. When MJ was really ready to wake up we went into her room, I could see that something had changed. MJ was…serene. She had figured out whatever it was that she wanted to figure out, and she was ready.

When the nurse and the doctor arrived and were doing paperwork and getting things ready in the living room, MJ croaked from her bed, “Are we doing this today, or what?!”, followed a few minutes later with a snappy, “Let’s get this show on the road!”

When everything was finally prepped, MJ’s son, daughter-in-law, the nurse, doctor and myself were all in MJs room, surrounding her. I held MJ’s hand and put on her favourite song. Dr. C of the Calgary MAiD Team was the provisioning doctor. She was the first doctor to interview MJ for MAiD. MJ liked her immediately and she said that Dr. C reminded her of a dear Pincher Creek friend. MJ had requested Dr. C specifically as the physician that would guide her out of this world.

MJ’s eyes closed while looking at her son. With a faint smile on her face away she went. It was honestly the most peaceful death I have ever witnessed. After MJ passed, we opened the windows of her bedroom and rolled up the shades. “Alive” MJ would have hated that! But we all decided that the windows needed to be open so her spirit could fly away from the body that had let her down for so many years.

The next morning I had a notification on my phone that my nephew’s girlfriend had posted something on Instagram. This was highly unusual, because I have my phone set NOT to receive notifications. I opened up Instagram, and the very first thing I saw was a photo. Of a martini. The martini had three olives. I kid you not.

The transformation that can occur when people are brave enough to examine their thoughts and beliefs is incredible. We talk about people being “ready to die”. I have seen people absolutely not ready to die, not yet having come to terms with their lives, and people that find that place of grace and serenity before they go. No one I know worked harder than MJ to embrace her own beautiful soul, to accept herself warts and all, and pass through the mysterious veil with peace. I like to imagine her (with a three-olive martini in hand)  laughing at the folly of thinking that she wasn’t a perfectly beautiful human being – with all her virtues and defects.  

Note: I could write a book about my time with MJ. It was a challenge to edit this story for a “blog-sized” read. Trust me when I say there was a lot more to those precious months with MJ. I miss her dearly.