The hospice nurse left just after dinner. You had refused to eat, even though I made fried chicken just the way she liked it. You picked at the wings, uninterested, and I could see the grief in your eyes for the loss of your appetite.
The nurse told me not to force food, just to offer, and bring anything you desired. “She’s close, maybe a week at most. Call her grand daughter.” she told me as she left for the night.
Once you and your husband were tucked into bed for the night, I called your grand daughter.
“Your grandma has a day or two left. Are you coming? She keeps asking for you.”
“I, ah, I, I’m on my way to Sacramento. For a stamp convention. Been waiting all year for this one. It’s really important to me.” She said flatly.
“OK. I can stay here until, until…” I stammered.
The words caught in my throat. I had come to love you dearly, and you, I. While our connection was profound, I was essentially a stranger, not blood relation, and that meant something to you. “I don’t understand. She’s my family, why won’t she come.” you would implore. You were dying of lymphoma, yet your mind was sharp and clear.
I would lean in and hug you in these moments, or snuggle closer if we were in bed together watching reruns of “Gunsmoke”. You appreciated this closeness, and would hold my hand for hours at a time in those final days. Sometimes I would bring a chair in for your husband, so he could sit beside you and hold your other hand. But he was a stoic and unemotional man, he preferred to watch television in the living room and “let her rest”.
Your home was warm and cozy, with a massive garden in the backyard- vegetables and fruit trees, flowers of all sorts, and roses. Many of the rosebushes were over fifty years old with gnarled trunks as thick as my leg and chest high, and just now, in full bloom. I brought fresh roses to your bedside every day. As I walked into the room with arms laden you would clutch at your chest and say, “Are those from my garden?’ You knew perfectly well that they were your roses.
I remained there for three days, sitting bedside vigil for hours, until I fell asleep sitting up. The third night I was reading in my chair, nodding off. Your husband's thunderous snores jolted me awake several times before I decided to lay down in my room for just an hour or so. When I startled awake again, I immediately felt the shift of energy in the house. I heaved my exhausted body out of bed and took a few calming breaths before walking down the dark hallway.
I peaked through the open door. They were so tiny together in that big bed, almost like children, except for his snoring. I walked to your side of the bed and reached for your hand. It was ice cold. And the wrist, up to the elbow, and the shoulder too, freezing. I laid my hand gently on your cheek, and there was no warmth or breath there.
I sunk into the chair beside the bed. How odd to be a stranger here in this most intimate place, witnessing what a son or daughter, or granddaughter might, and yet my grief crashed over me and I sat with tears running hot and quick into my lap. I checked the time, and after a few minutes, I touched my fingertips to the place on your neck where your pulse ought to be. I waited, and counted, watching the clock. There was no movement in your body.
After several minutes I stood up knowing I had calls to make. I decided not to wake your husband. Why not allow him a few hours more of sleep with his beloved wife of seventy years, as she relieved herself of this world and moved on. They had fallen asleep holding hands, yours dainty and fragile, his big and boxy. This is exactly what they wanted, to be home, together, just the two of them.
I called your granddaughter first. She answered after 2 rings, with a croaky voice, but clear minded.
“I just checked her, no pulse, no breath. She’s gone.”
“Oh, ok. Call the nurse, they’ll take care of everything. I’ll be there in a couple of days to sort out what to do with Grandpa.”
I wanted to offer my condolences, and mourn with her, the only other person who might also be feeling the agony I was experiencing. Perhaps if she had been here we would make tea and cry together in the kitchen, waiting for the sunrise and the nurses arrival. We would wake your husband together and tend to his grief too.
But your granddaughter never had any intentions of being with us for this moment, she had indeed made other plans, and passed off this most sacred duty of protecting her dying grandmother to me, the caregiver hired to deal with such matters.
I couldn’t stop my tears as I called the after hours hospice nurse, and when she arrived I was still on the couch weeping. She told me to stop crying, to be strong for my grandpa.
“He’s not my grandpa. I work here.” I said quietly.
“Then you’ve got work to do. Pull it together.” she said.
The day passed in a swirl of paperwork and tears. I tucked a purple rose from your garden into your folded hands as they carried your little body out of the house. Your husband was stunned and confused and asked why we didn’t take you to the hospital. He was 98 with dementia and prostate cancer, and needed daily reminders that you were on hospice and had come home to die.
I didn’t listen to the nurse and “pull it together”. I worked and wept and remembered my friend, and told each of your rose bushes that you had gone.
