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Escher Eye
Three great reads on grief 1. Surge Capacity our ability to survive stresses faced in Covid times. This works for grief 2. A review of yogi Shabkar work in loss and grief. Important. 3 Pandemic & Isolation so much written but this is is clear applicable to our grief.
Following Donna’s death I examined my loss and my grief relentlessly. Closure was never an option. Closure is indifference. Closure is denial said pretty. Closure ignores who Donna was and who she is within me. In my grief journey/work I’ve discovered three domains. We all grieve differently and each of our grief journeys are entirely unique. I attacked my grief hard and discovered its purpose and meaning for me. My wound of grief allowed light to enter.
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Dinner on Sunday was low key. The walk home, only two blocks, was difficult. Each step Donna took was painful and slow. She walked like one of Jerry’s kids on a telethon with braces.
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With a damp index finger he pushed little drops of condensation away. Swiping left right left right making rivulets to sharpen the image. The finger touched the nose in the mirror slowly then moved up and left and stroked the left eye. He tapped it to see if it would blink. No blink just an eye looking back into his eyes.
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Donna in Maine
This year the days leading up to and the day Donna died were unremarkable in a way. The pain and longing was there and darted like bats from the pitch black corners and recesses of my mind at random times was present. Flying at my face always fresh, new, and like WTF. It seems new every year and most days in between.
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Caregiving tasks suddenly and forever ended when Donna died three and half years after being told she would only live for six months. Caregiving tasks were the markers and check boxes for purpose during her treatment. That was all. Never meaning.
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This is not just a film for those grieving it is for everyone one of us. Grieving, grief adjacent, afraid to support, grief dumb, and those who want to see grief from the inside.
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The Crisis Text Line Hoodie
The hoodie allowed me to journey with texters to have them discover and achieve a cool calm. I am beyond grateful for being allowed to journey with them.
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Kubrick “Sometimes the truth of a thing is not in the think of it but the feel of it.” I feel that my decision to become a crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line gave me as much as give those in crisis. You should consider joining.
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Cake Topper May 15, 1983
Anniversary grief is subtle when it starts. You know the date and in your mind there is a smile remembering what happened that day and all that make the 28 years that followed. Then one morning you wake expecting to do the usual calling Donna just because it's what you do to greet the day. Today it's a plaintive cry imploring the gods to ease the pain settled in your bones.
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Today within our community and others we are gathered around a virtual village fountain sharing. Our personal grief shared allows other to see their grief and access it. AND it helps us understand and find a safe place to grieve. Shared emotions and ideas can only serve to help others integrate new knowledge into their world to create a new consciousness. COVID-19 and the pandemic will not allow even this small measure of grief and support to thrive.
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I was living, barely, devoid of meaning after Donna died. I was part of the epidemic of loneliness and despair. I didn’t know when I went though that writing exercise there is more behind this than just my grief journey.
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Catching up on my grief, loss, and healing reading. Here are a few quick recommendations for our individual grief and the collective grief of being in a pandemic.
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Duvet swung right, feet pushed left and planted on the floor. 38 steps to the kitchen embedded in memory. Each day this repetitive genesis yielding to nothing matters. Then are the moments frozen in the emotional amber of grief. Tomorrow’s then’s are cataracts, cloudy at best.
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Meaning will not happen because we wish it. It happens with careful tending, watering, and fertilizing. It took me years to find meaning, new or otherwise.
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Not sure when I started to consider volunteering. It was not easy to consider it as an option. Nothing says retired, old, unless, and without meaning and purpose as does “I am volunteering at...” Don’t get my message here wrong. I am not besmirching volunteering. Without people doing it much of the greatness humans offer other humans evaporates. It is more about me being unaccepting of me as I am.
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Our Wedding Invite
My solo grief work and journey has changed. I can say that I am no longer a solo griever because I have two families. Hot Young Widows Club is my family who absolutely understands my grief. They know me without knowing me. Crisis Text Line is my other family. In some ways similar to my HYWC family. With my Crisis Text Line family I can become more of the person Donna loved into being.
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Looking through the open door into Room 9D06 I watch two orderlies in neatly pressed green scrubs gently lift Donna from her bed onto a grey tubular steel gurney with crisp white sheets and a pillow. A pillow? It’s less pillow more an unrecognizable white stuffed animal. The taller orderly bends and reaches a hand under the gurney. He lifts a folded blue waffle weave blanket. Unfurls it with a little snap to cover Donna. My mind is screaming shroud. I hum a mantra: it’s a blanket, blanket, blanket mmmm while slowing my breathing. A medical chart is placed on top.
With great care the orderlies tucked the blanket under her. Even in July Donna was cold. Cold is her base line. Cold was the lurking unseen figure I’d slay every winter. Especially these past three years when chemo took its toll. I’d make a carefully tended orange tongued fire crackling in 2/2 time to lure the cold to its death. Mostly I conjured the magic of electricity.
Two Christmas’s ago I bought Donna an electric blanket that became a shawl carefully draped over her shoulders. When it yielded its shawl duties it sat folded on the corner of the sofa ready to battle the cold.
Donna would sit in the living room watching TV wrapped in this pure white warmth while I kneeled at the coffee table and made pill packets for her next chemo treatment. I would count out the number of pills on the glass top. Using my fingers to to push Mondays three, Tuesdays two, Wednesdays one to locations like tiny pin drops on life’s maps. Then use my pinky finger and slowly navigate them over the edge of the glass. They dropped one by one into small brown paper envelopes assigned the date. Each one had a responsibility. We all did.
Mostly I sat next to her watching TV. ‘The Sons of Anarchy’ with Kurt Sutter as Jax Teller was her crush. She loved the spelling J A X. It was her, all about communication and the uniqueness of words. Those winter evenings, burrowed under the electric blanket, Donna would turn to me right before the show started, and say, “Jax is starting. I do not want to hear a peep out of you for the next hour.” She was not dead yet.
We would playfully debate what setting the blanket needed based on the temp outside and her mood, elevating the importance of this blanket to a significance far greater than its utility. It was a moment of reprise in the middle of a terminal illness concert.
The smaller orderly raised headboard of the gurney so Donna could see forward whether she wanted to or not. These past three years the future was never discussed. Being admitted to the hospital a week ago silenced any possible discussion of the future as if a needle was lifted off a record. Everything we witnessed and felt for three years and especially this week was silently understood. No denial. It was just an understanding. This story was being moved to its not so happy ending.
We looked at each other. No smiles. Our eyes touched recognizing the seas of emotions roiling behind them. I reached for her hand. For thirty years we walked our life together holding hands. Donna would say with a joy, “Our hands fit so perfectly in each others. Why?” They still do even if only one of us was walking along side of the other.
Behind her half closed eyes Donna is thinking: “Holding Mark’s hand is comforting. It always was. I am sapping his life as he comforts me. He needs comfort he needs safe he needs to feel all that I ever felt for him. Not this. Not now.”
Donna smiled to herself returning to December 1989. “It was a perfect solution. Wear gloves in the house.” I thought it was for a week. Then Mark asked me during our Sunday dinner: ’Why the gloves?’ I’ve been cold I said unconvincingly. ‘What?’ He looked at me. I began to cry. ‘Im sorry Im sorry please don’t be mad. Please.’ I removed the glove from my left hand and held it nervously up to show him the diamond ring I bought. Tears were flowing. ‘I traded the ring you got me for this one. It is bigger but, it is an antique Rose cut that was in an estate of a Jewish family that escaped Germany.” I wiped my tears and looked at Mark. Coursing rivulets of guilt consumed me. He smiled. Kissed me. ‘It’s okay I love you. Besides your glove thing was wearing thin so I knew something was up. At least you didn’t upgrade me,’ I thought I felt guilty then I new all was well because I laughed. He got me.
The taller orderly began steer Donna’s journey. The other orderly retuned to the room to clean and prepare it for the next patient.
Room 9D06 faded behind us as we navigated the hallways. Room 9D06 became the distant shoreline of surrendered hope. The gurney wheels echoed its rhythmic ‘whack whack whack’. Marking time.
This part of the hospital was a medical/surgical floor with staff stations located every few rooms. Nurses and physicians stood looking at charts in brightly colored plastic binders while others sat at keyboards typing notes. The patient rooms were hives of family members or staff serving medications to patients in beds or sitting in chairs. Sunlight was always present in the 9th floor rooms. The brightness felt clean and illuminated hope behind the scrim of illness, the buzzing of equipment, and the voices of families.
We reached the elevators. Reluctantly I released Donna’s hand and carefully placed it on the blanket. I pushed the down button. We waited, to the left of the doors, looking up at the numbers on the panel silently counting 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9. The doors opened the cab was empty. With the skill of a NYC truck driver on a narrow oneway street the gurney was placed in the cab perfectly centered without a touch to a wall. I pushed the 4th floor button.
For three years Donna and I knew where she was going with or without an elevator. We knew where this journey would end. I wanted this elevator to become a Star Trek Transporter and take us away somewhere anywhere. I closed my eyes and wished and wished. I wanted to be Nina, our Westie, who marveled at the joy of an elevator. You get in this room, the doors close, and then there you are walking outside. Magic. Nina was transported somewhere where she wanted to be. That was not happening. Donna and I were going to where we had to be.
We rode in silence to the fourth floor and exited. The 4th floor was noticeably less active and silent. The halls were narrow and went left to right to left in sharpe angles. The gurney steered perfectly making the tight turns with care. The sound of the gurney wheels in the vacant halls echoed WHACK WHACK WHACK. All my senses became focused and pointed. We were no longer part of a busy patient care floor. Here there was a sense of isolation. Alone. I felt we were being watched by unseen eyes hidden behind an imagined overgrowth. Unseen eyes who knew more about my future and Donna’s present.
A final left turn was made and we stopped. In front of us were pale green double doors. The orderly reached across Donna’s supine form and loudly slapped a metal plate. Electric doors shuddered and opened. We had arrived at the hospice unit.
A few seconds of silence and the ‘whack whack whack’ began again slower and softer. The doors closed and and in my mind they whispered ‘welcome’.
Me: “It’s very silent. Not like it is upstairs”
Orderly: “I come here and it’s like this isn’t the hospital. Like it’s somewhere else, y’know what I’m saying?”
Me: “I know peaceful” (a pause) “Without all the machines beeping, staff darting about, and families talking. It feels…”
Orderly: “I hear you. Upstairs is for people who’ve got things to do like get better and go home. In hospice it’s quiet, like you know where you are. You get it?”
Me “Do you frequently bring patients here? Does it make you sad?”
Orderly: “Over time it’s not what I thought a hospice would be. I always thought it would make me run, y’know? Like where peoples are dying. This kinda seems like a rest stop now. A place of peace before... Just keeps me from, you know, (almost a whisper) thinking hospice.”
Me: “Perhaps giving death agency is what hospice is.”
As the gurney navigated a harshly lit florescent hall. I looked into the dark rooms lining both sides of the hall. Family members in silhouette stood by bedsides. Emotionless eyes looking at vacant faces lying in beds in silence. All were pale, mouths open, dentures missing, sallow skeleton hands clutching blankets to hold them in the present.
Room 15 was on my right. I peered through the darkness looking more closely trying to see faces to understand where I was now? Hope abandoned us when we left room 9D06. Where Donna was going? Where was I was going?
Theodore was the name on the placard to the left of the door frame. Who was he? Clearly he was the elderly, frail, grey haired gentleman in the bed. Standing at the foot of the bed two women. One was elderly as well greying hair wearing a black sweater, jeans, and flats. The other woman was young. Perhaps 35 dressed for work. Both were silently looking at Theodore while he slept, if that is what you do in hospice, willfully sleep.
The hall lights darkened my left hand released from the gurney. I was standing next to Theodore and two women. The room was darker. The windows were dark. There were just a bed, chairs, and an IV stand. The three faces were bathed in a light. Not a harsh light or ethereal. It was just light.The faces were not the ones I saw from the hall. There was no sign troubled, pained, and lost. These new faces were the same but at peace.
“I am so sorry I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to come into your room. Please forgive me.” I stammered looking down at my feet embarrassed. I attempted to to back out.
“It is fine please don’t apologize. We were expecting you.” Said the older woman. The younger woman smiled and nodded, “Welcome”. She paused, “Welcome is such a terrible word here. It’s not as if this room, this place can ever feel welcoming on any level. You are here, we are here, but more importantly Donna is here.”
WTF?
“My name is Mable and this is my daughter Rachel.” Mable pointed to the man in the bed, “Theadore’s my husband. Rachel’s dad. You’re Mark. Your wife Donna is on the gurney.” My mind was racing with questions and frozen at the same time.
I looked at Theadore on the bed. He did not appear as he did from the hallway. He was no longer gaunt and frail. Theadore was younger and clear eyed. He looked at me with a smile of recognition, “Not to be redundant, Welcome.”
“Welcome to what? This dimension a place that does not exist a place that I am making up in my head.” I said
More WTF. Donna? How did they know? Who are they? What are they besides what I can see? What is this? Have I just lost my mind? Has the reality of Donna’s foreshadowed death just days away driven me to hallucinations?
“Look I don’t know what is going on or if this is a joke. I’m confused and afraid. Please tell me what is this?” my voice plaintive
The older woman spoke, “We’ve all had that reaction when we entered here. Mine was fear too. It took me time to understand this world and more time to find my place in it. Trust me you will too.”
“I still don’t understand. I we are in a hospice. Donna is out there on a gurney being wheeled to her death and I am in this dream/nightmare state with people who looked one way out there” I frantically pointed to the hall and the gurney, “and another here. I need to be with her to be her caregiver.” Pleading nearly in tears.
The daughter in soft comforting tones: “It will be fine you’ll see. You are not separated from her. This and that exist simultaneously.” Pointing at her dad and Donna.
Rachel turned to me her eyes were the lightest of blue and her face still carried freckles across her her nose. From the hall I would have never seen those features. Out there I saw fear, bereavement, and sadness.
“The dying have created this place or state for us. It is not universal. Not everyone can find it. I am not sure why but, many miss this connection. This place.” Rachel turned away as her voice trailed off.
Mable touched Rachel’s arm: “I know Rach. I wish everyone could be here.”
“What is here? Why here? I am so lost. Help me.” More pleading a bit louder and closer to whining. You know when your dad reads you Peter Pan at bedtime and as much as you’re charmed and enthralled but you just want to know how the fuck did that happen? Where did Peter come from? Tinkerbell? Fly? That was my state right now.
“Donna made the introduction to this place and to us to let you know where and why. She saw you were hurting. She saw caregiving and her death was crushing you. She was hurting, not physically, but emotionally knowing what her death would do to you.” said Mable
Theodor was behind me and spoke. I turned: “I have CHF. I was diagnosed four years ago with stage 3. Last month it progressed to stage 4. It was time for me to die.”
Mable moved to the side of his bed and reached with her hand and touched his face. Her eyes and his eye were silent. The light that was on them moved with them.
Theodor closed his eyes and spoke: “I knew my death was an emotional horror for my wife and daughter. Our lives were simultaneously being drained. The closer to my death I moved the wider the gap between caregiver and loved one became. We were loosing each other as loved ones. Our lives together were tasks not joy. Caregiving became the carriage carrying me to my death. It submerged our love for each other.”
Rachel still standing at the foot of bed” “Dad, it was not like that at all. Caregiving was what you do for love. Period.”
Theodor laughing: “Rachael you are the most adorable daughter I have. I love you so much. I think you get this pollyanna from your mom.”
Rachael with a smirk: “I am your only fucking daughter so that statement falls a bit flat. Yes you are dark as hell so it is a mom gene.” There were small giggles in the room.
Turning to me Rachel spoke waving her finger to the room: “Mark what you saw from the hall is what we all are here. It’s what the world sees. This now right here where you are is where we were before Dad got sick. A before time. That is what happens in this place. I call it MemoryLand. Mom, dad , and I are our memories. We are here with those memories. Not simply reliving them.”
Rachael waves her hand bigger circles. “This is were those of us who are truly connected with our dying loved…” She stops and tilts her head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Dad will you please tell us.”
“Rachael I’m not sure I understand either. All I can do it describe what I see.”
Theodor stretched a little and rolled his head thinking if he loosened up his neck it would help him put words to things that words may never explain.
“Mark there was no clicking my heels three times or a snap of fingers and poof MemoryLand appears. When I entered hospice I surrendered, retreated into a world of memories. To tell the truth, which the living don’t really know those of us who are dying do that.
We find memories where we were whole and happy. The reality of that.” Theodor pointed to the hall. “is it’s a crushing horror filled place. MemoryLand is a glade where I, Mable, and Rachael are connected though our memories. It is not denial nor escape. The reality of death is still very much present and painful for us all. MemoryLand is the animation of our connection and love through active memory and emotional sharing. Not just between us but with others who are part of MemoryLand.”
The room is silent now. The three look at me trying to measure my state of disbelief. Still unsure what I am seeing and hearing. I nod. It seems polite to nod.
“You were brought here by Donna. We are all brought into MemoryLand by our dying loved ones. They find MemoryLand first. They can see it and when they close their eyes there is an acceptance of this, call it a gift. Not just for them but the ability to share with their loved one. Our lives are ending. Your knowledge is expanding through the wound of death and grief.” Theodor continues as his face registers awareness and knowledge.”
Mable clutches Theodor’s hand tightly, “Mark, MemoryLand is not a healing ointment. It will not erase the pain, save the dying, or give us peace. It is a place where through our common hurt and pain we find light and understanding in a much larger world than the three of us. Grief never goes away it just becomes a trusted spirt within us.”
“Many of the dying do not find the gift of MemoryLand because their loved ones or them may not be in a connected state. Or they may not understand the pain that is part of this contract of love. The reality of death evades them. They may be blind or unaware of the pain and grief. It is odd to think that the pain of grief is a doorway to MemoryLand and this trapeze of connections.”
I think I understand, to a point, “So what happens now? How do I find you again? How do you find me? Are there others?”
Rachel smiles, “We find each other. We just know who is part of MemoryLand. It is clear to us and not others. Which is sad for me because what is here, this MemoryLand, is magical in a way. Again, it does not mask, hide, or refute the pain of my loss and grief.”
Rachel continued: “No one wants to be here. No one wants to suffer the fear and grief of loss. Our connections with each other though memories and stories is the logical extension of their death our grief. You’ll see. We, those of us connected to MemoryLand, will appear to each other when needed, not only to help you but for you to help others. This is a community of memories and grief. The wound of grief allows light of knowledge to enter when it is not locked away. It is part of this community.” Rachel looked at me and smiled.
I found myself standing next to Donna on the gurney. I looked into room 15 with a new sense of recognition and hope of seeing what I just experienced. No, all I saw was the gaunt dying face of a man and two women suffering. I shook my head, held Donna’s hand, and continued to walk with her.
The gurney entered room 25. It was dark. The bed was neatly made. Faded teal walls displayed invisible cave drawings of those to who rested here before Donna. Two chairs and an end table surrounded the bed in mock anticipation. Outside the windows on the left was an internal courtyard with rusting AC equipment. Not the park that was seen from Room 9D06 in the hospital. How long would she be in Room 25? There was no expectation of discharge only release.
Room 25 became a teal blue rowboat named ‘Hospice’. Donna was gently moved to the bed. I place her teddy bear Ruggle’s next to her. They both kept each other safe. As she reclined in the bed looking at the drabness surrounding her Donna was preparing to be pushed from the dark wet sands on shore onto a calm lake at sunset. How long would the wake of this rowboat remain?
Ruggles was always there in hospice with Donna
Donna looked up and me and smiled. It was a small smile barely noticeable but a smile just the same. At that moment a memory of hers came to me from three years ago. I was in MemoryLand.
I watched Donna walk back to her cubby (damn open office fad) after a creative review meeting. The red voice mail light was flashing. I was there unseen as Donna lifted the receiver and held to her ear. Working in a cubby meant that everyone would hear voice mail was if you played it out loud. The message began: “Donna this is Dr. S. I have the radiology report from your CT scan. I’m sorry to tell you. You have terminal cancer and six months to live. Please call me.”
This was not new to me. What was new was watching her slowly return the receiver to the phone and look at her notes from the meeting. Her face did not show any reaction because she was at work. I looked closely and could see sadness. She went about her day and caught the subway home.
When she came home that day Donna shared the basics of the phone call. She cried. She said let’s go to OR so I can be put down. That day when my grief began. We sat in silence both thinking there would be no fairytale ending. That day she gave me her disease so she could live life on her terms free from the anchor of death.
Where we sat when Donna told me she had six months to live.
She told only a few others about the VM. About her disease. It was only those who were part of her small world of friends. It was shared not out of self-pity but out anger at that’s how she was told. I never heard her being angry at her death just the VM of death.
This VM memory was new because I was present watching, listening, and feeling. This is what Theodor was talking about. MemoryLand being a connector to our loved ones. I saw and heard this just as Donna did. I felt her fear and hurt. I was her. This was MemoryLand.
Once Donna was settled into her room, staff introductions made and the routine described I left to head home and walk Nina. I thought about my role of caregiver. It replaced grief by offering up purpose and meaning each day. Each caregiving task pulled a bit of yarn that unraveled every moment of 29 years and bringing them to-life in bas-relief I could run my fingers and memories over. Right now I was at a cross roads. No more caregiving. I was returning to be a loved one.
I walked along side an older man who was leaving as well. As we walked toward the double doors to exit the hospice we were making small talk avoiding the obvious when we found ourselves standing alone in a darkened room. With the same light as I saw in room 15 on us. I was in MemoryLand with Gene and his wife Gail. Donna was present too. She was sitting in a chair listening and being part of MemoryLand.
Mark: “Donna we’re going to be late for the CT scan.”
Donna: “Stop being annoyingly OCD. So what if I miss a scan I’m the terminal one not you. Grab a cab.”
Mark: “I’m just trying to keep things moving. The scan will tell us if the treatment is working.”
Donna: “Shut up. I know the science and medicine better than you. Just get a cab.”
Mark: “Stand on the curb while I hail a cab.”
Donna: “I’m not a cripple yet. Stop treating me like one. Get a fucking cab.”
Thinking back: “Why do I continue to hear street noise and not her voice?”
Donna shouting: “There! That one. Get it.”
Mark: “Stop pushing me into traffic. Are you trying to get me run over?”
He opened the cab door helped Donna in and clicked her seatbelt. You don’t want to die in an accident.
Donna laughing: “Got it didn't we and we won’t be late. So there.”
Gene laughed at my memory and quipped: “I can see she was her own person.” I smiled and nodded.
“Gail my wife was” Gene caught himself and looked at Gail. “I guess I should say is, her own person too. Is? Shouldn’t I dear.” Gail who like Theodore was not in the throws of being ravished by her end-of-life status. She had a hospital gown on and her hair was not perfectly styled or radiant. It hung on the sides of her face unmoved and lifeless. A sheen of oiliness apparent. The hands were skeletal like and nail unpolished and yellowed. Then there were her eyes. Bright blue and clear. That as all you needed to see to know you were in MemoryLand.
Gail chuckled, “It’s okay Gene, was will be soon enough. So what memory were you going to share with Mark that I am sure will embarrass me?”
“When we were dating you wanted to impress me with your cooking. It wasn’t until years later, after we were married, that your mom said you had called her a dozen times to help walk you thought a meal.” Gene was smiling so big he was in a perfect place right now.
Gail in mock anger: “Well as you know I am known for my ability to manage money, lots of money. So I needed a bit of help on the food front. I didn’t poison you did I?”
“I remained healthy well into the next day and beyond. At some point after the meal which was good. Steak and potatoes of course. A cheese cake you bought. I offered to clean up. It’s only correct. So I did the dishes and went to get the broiler pan out of the oven. When I lifted it out to clean it in the pan bottom there was what appeared to be six months of fat drippings. And some broiled roaches.”
Gail chimed in: “Well as you asked me then. Did it seem like magic when you looked at the broiler and saw there was nothing there? Of course I didn’t pick up the cover of broiling pan to look. So shut up.” Gail was visibly laughing now.
Again MemoryLand was were the four of us were. We were not dying or grieving we were together connected in our sharing. It was that place and our desire to erase all that was our world. It was never denial. It was never escape. It was the refreshing of heart because the foreshadowed death of a loved one would take agency of love away. MemoryLand was where we could find peace as we navigated our grief journey.
As quickly as Gene and I were with Gail and Donna we were as quickly walking toward the double doors. There was no collective acknowledgement of our shared memories. We nodded at each other understanding we were both here facing the same moment in our lives and the coming deaths of our loved ones. Just Gene and Mark visiting the hospice. We exited the unit and walked in different directions.
I caught the subway home. It was time to feed and walk Nina Donna’s beloved Westhighland Terrier. Forever dotted on by Donna. Groomed to perfection bi-monthly and a comfort to us both. Nina had diabetes and had to have a big meal before her insulin so that meant dolling up the dish. Over the past two years with her diabetes Nina understood the need for an injection after dinner. Maybe I was just getting better. She’d walk over to me bend her head so I could gather a skin fold inject her. Once done Nina bolted around the house and headed to the door for her walk.
After her walk. I sat in the dark without the courage to look at our home or watch TV without Donna. I just sat and waited. I would head to the hospice at 11 after Nina’s walk to sit the night at her bedside bedside trying to sleep in a chair.
I closed my eyes was in the car with Donna driving to Maine. We were in a connected silence like starlings on a telephone line allowing the air from open windows to lift them into flight. In hospice we sat in silence again. Even without the wind we rose and soared above the teal rowboat.
During the night the hospice unit was even more quiet. If that’s possible. The hall lights are dimmed and all the rooms are dark except for light coming from the open bathroom door. The bathroom light cast itself on the floor and pointed to the patient as if calling them.
I entered Donna’s room. The windows are opposite the door and looked out on a court yard between the hospital wings. During the day there was sunlight filtering down from above the floors. At night it was dark with the only light coming from rooms across the expanse. The windowsill became an alter of flowers, cards, and stuffed animals brought by friends knowing Donna would never take them home. At this stage she was hardly awake to see them. Those totems stood as reminders that even they wanted no part of this.
I pulled a chair up next to the head of the bed. Donna was awake. She turned to me put her hand out. I held it softly thinking how much smaller it has become.
“Donna I bought “McDuff Saves the Day.” You want me to read it to you?” Donna squeezed my hand, smiled, and closed her eyes. In opium dreams of the dying Donna saw Nina running on a beach in Maine and wadding into the water. She was such a brave little girl. We are alike Donna thought.
The book about a cute Westie McDuff that looked like Nina. We bought in Maine last year. Donna was so happy to have that book. She placed on the coffee table when we got home. She even showed Nina the drawings in the book. I think she read it to Nina when I wasn’t home.
“It was the Fourth of July. Lucy and Fred took McDuff and the baby for a picnic at Lake Ocarina. McDuff rode in the backseat next to the baby, which he did not like, but with the fried chicken, which he did like.”
“McDuff switched to the front seat, where he could see everything which he liked.”
I continued to read turning the pages with one hand so I could continue to hold her hand. I was nearly half way though the book when Donna released my hand and fell asleep. I tuned the light next to bed off and quietly moved the chair to the foot of the bed. The nurse left me a blanket and pillow. I tried to get comfortable. I looked at her gaunt face and hallowed out eyes. My mind kept seeing the past two weeks and how my heart broke witnessing the horizon of death rushing toward her. Death never slowed its approach. Death never lost its breath. Death was never rushed. It was the vista in the windshield. Where was MemoryLand?
Is sharing a death is the ultimate act of love? It’s a ballet perfectly choreographed with plies, pirouettes, and arabesques. Silently staged for no one other than the dying and the loved ones. The hospice Sherpa’s lifted my caregiving restored our loved ones status.
Sunday evening I was finishing up walking and feeding Nina when the phone rang.
“Come back to the hospital right away. Her breathing is agonal.”
I jumped in a cab told the driver where to go and how. A wrong turn and a one-way street forced me to jumped out and race down the pavement through the hospital up a crowded elevator that stopped on every floor to room 25.
Her eyes were closed to the soft evening light filtering into the room. I walked to a neatly made bed with the blanket pulled up to her chest and kissed her. The nurse came in and said, “She passed away five minutes ago.”
An attending and a resident came to pronounce the time of death. They brought extreme understanding, kindness, and empathy. I tried to comfort them because I needed to be comforted. I failed as I did in keeping her alive.
The sun was setting as I sat alone in a park next to the hospital facing west calling family and friends. The orange sunset over New Jersey peeked though the valleys between buildings. I was back in MemoryLand.
I realized for the first time in 21 days, that two blocks away we married 28 years earlier. I saw us leaving our apartment in Soho. We caught a cab to the restaurant where we would be married. I can taste the flourless chocolate cake we had with adorned with a bedazzled piece of art made by a friend. The bride and groom standing under a chuppah were Calaveras.”
The Rabbi spoke, “Marriage is one life event we do together. We are born alone. We die alone.”
I need to redefine thrive. My failure to thrive is a standard from another place and time. That previous standard is not producing the outcomes I expect because they as Donna liked to say “There is a reason they call it history. It happened then.” Old standards and outcomes are not applicable to me today.
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MC Escher 1946
No matter when one examines life and death you can count on a certain amount of knowledge to follow. Prolonged grief is a serious issue. Examining our own grief to see for ourselves if it is prolonged is important.
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