The short goodbye...

This last week has been challenging. Death in the family is always difficult, but as the death comes to those who have been ill for quite some time or who are elderly, one is expected to be “ready.” That doesn’t happen. If you think the time is near, you feel guilty and ignore the warning signs.

“Oh, he’s just tired, and we’ve had too much going on lately.” Last Friday afternoon, my sweetheart, pseudo- husband mentioned that he was glad it was going to be Saturday. “So, it will just be the two of us.” We’ve had a great deal of company… healthcare related company. Nurses’ handing out meds, nurses aids coming every morning to bathe, shave, and dress him. We’ve had a nursing aid that I hired to keep me alive. Since she came to work for us, I’ve not done one load of laundry, opened the dishwasher, or had to leave him for a few minutes to run to the grocery store. She’s been here two hours a day on weekdays to “save me.” At one time before we got the extra help, I wasn’t sure who would go first, him or me. He might have been 83, but I was 74 going on dead.

I’m not sure if he realized the end was so near. Probably not, but when one of the nurses brought us two chili rellenos lunches from her parent’s restaurant on Friday, he ate every bite on his plate. “If you don’t want all of yours,” he said, “don’t give it to the dogs.”

If he had been a prisoner and ordered that last meal, it couldn’t have been more appreciated. We talked for a while, sang a little of a favorite song, “I love you, a bushel and a peck,” and he went to sleep. I noticed he was having some problems very early the next morning. The Hospice Angel showed up to comfort him and me. In a state of calm, he slipped off to heaven before I knew what was happening.

It would seem that after almost three years of nursing him through extreme pain and then being joined six months ago by the Hospice team that I would be ready for it to be over. I would go to bed and sleep soundly. But after all that time, one doesn’t stop suddenly. I woke after an hour and a half and was checking the baby monitor in my room… wondering why I couldn’t hear the oxygen machine. I got almost to his room before it hit me. I went back to bed.

Later that morning, I made a full pot of coffee. I turned the television volume to low. I kept the front curtains shut. Each time, I felt foolish. It wasn’t foolish. It was a sign of a habit, well learned. A habit of caring, loving, and being needed.

The rest of the week has been filled with the details of life and death interspersed with naps and long conversations with friends and relatives. I’m ready for a rest. He would want me to rest, and I want him to enjoy his rest.