Refresh

It rained sporadically all morning, a fine, needle like mist that pelted my cheeks as I dashed from the house to the car.  We spent the morning at my aunt's house, searching for paperwork (house deeds, car titles, insurance policies...)  We found instead a marriage certificate, signed with a flourish by Justice of the Peace Anthony Owen, on November 15, 1947.  We also found an (incredibly small looking!) uniform shirt, US Air Force, circa 1943, and a pair of purple silks such as a boxer might wear into the ring.  There was a box filled with patchwork quilt squares, ready for my aunt's Wednesday morning quilting group to piece into one of the many beautiful bed coverings they made back in the 1960's.  And a class ring, again incredibly small, threaded through a delicate chain so it could be worn as a necklace.  When we emerged from this time warp, the sun had come out.  The maple leaves sparkled with glints of gold, and raindrops perched on their tips like diamond earrings.  There was a freshness to the air and a similar lightness in my heart, as if the rain had washed away the gloom and sadness which had permeated the past two weeks.  I could see light at the end of this tunnel at last.

My challenge emotionally  for the coming months is to pull myself out of the melancholy pit I've been lingering in for most of the summer, seek out opportunities for happiness and indulge in them, refuse to allow myself to get drawn any deeper into self-pity and fearfulness and worry.   It's a bit like hitting the refresh button on the computer keyboard...the same page will come back on the screen, but with the newest, most up-to-date information.  The basic facts of my life aren't going to change right now...there is fresh loss and grief, uncertainty about the future, more work to do...but mainly there is still life, and people who love me.  There are dogs to cuddle and take for a walk, music to play, and books to be read.  There are vistas of red and gold maple leaves, cool autumn breezes,  hot coffee and fresh baked cinnamon rolls for the morning.

A dear friend  sent me a card in the mail that reads...

There's no doubt this is hard.  There are questions, "what ifs."  Hurts, doubts, regrets...

But I know you.

I know you've come through hard times before, and you'll come through this one, too.

And what's more,

I know you'll be even stronger for it -

deeper in understanding and even more certain of your good place in this world.

Today I caught a glimmer of light at the end of this long tunnel, a moment of certainty that there was still a good place in the world.

And I was refreshed.

Another One Gone

On Saturday night, about 11: 15 p.m., my aunt quite peacefully stopped breathing.  There were six people hovering around her bedside - I wasn't one of them, for I had told her goodbye earlier in the afternoon and gone home.  I knew when I left that I wouldn't see her again, but the hospice nurse told us that most often people prefer to die alone, and will often "linger" in hopes of being able to do just that.  But there were surprising numbers of people who wanted to be at her bedside - relatives, close friends, even casual acquaintances, who seemed bound and determined to insert themselves into her final hours.  I didn't feel the need to compete for her attention, or to try and hold her back on this journey.  She was ready to go, and I was ready to let her leave.  Yesterday afternoon we buried her next to her husband, so they are "together forever" as it says on their newly minted grave marker.  (We will have to leave it to God to decide whether that is reward or punishment for them.)  This picture of her was taken in 1946, not long before they eloped to Bowling Green, Ohio, on a chilly November afternoon.  Like most young couples of their time, they were full of the optimism and hope erupting from the end of  that long war.  And they would definitely have said they achieved the American dream as it was defined in those days.  My uncle, a poor Mexican boy from Texas, got a college education and a professional position.  He earned enough money to buy his own home, wear good suits from Brooks Brothers, and drive Buicks and Cadillacs.  He retired with the security of a lifetime pension and healthcare, and the knowledge that his wife would be well taken care of even after his death. 

They never had children of their own, but there were all of us nieces and nephews to play with and spoil.  There was also a parade of neighbor children and the children of friends who were the beneficiaries of their generosity.  Although my aunt was rather opinionated and demanding, she somehow marshalled an army of loyal followers who were faithful to the bitter end.   She didn't give of herself unselfishly the way my mother does, but somehow she managed to inspire fierce devotion anyway. 

The end of a life - especially a long one -always inspires introspection, making one think about the mark you leave on the world, the possibilities fulfilled (and unfulfilled), the legacy left behind.   Each of us has one, some certainly larger and more impressive than others, but each one important and necessary in the grand scheme of life. 

"Honey, I just tried to do what the Lord wanted me to do," my aunt would say.  In her heart, she believed she followed her Higher Power. 

I suppose that's all any of us can do before we're gone.

Up for Air

How can one week feel so interminably long, yet at the same time pass in a mere heartbeat?  The world has continued to turn at its normal pace, while I feel stranded in the midst of a foreign and dangerous land, virtually drowning in a sea of emotions and impressions.  Will there ever be time to process all that has happened in my life during this week? The facts:  On Monday, after determining that the only remedy for my aunt's condition would be a major surgical procedure from which she would likely never recover, the decision was made to place her in hospice care.   The hospital has its own hospice unit, and on Monday afternoon she was wheeled directly into a spacious private room.   She has her pillows and favorite quilt from home, those intrusive tubes and IV's have been removed,  and she has been resting fairly comfortably since then.

Of course, those bare facts don't begin to scratch the surface of  the myriad  emotions which have pulled at me like the fiercest undertow.  The leaden resignation as I sign my name to DNR orders and hospice admittance papers.   The searing pain of walking into her home, her refuge from the world for the last 56 years, and knowing she'll never return.  The anger at a medical bureaucracy which saps the little strength I have left.  The frustration with other people who demonstrate such lack of awareness regarding the needs of the dying.  The weighty responsibility of managing her estate which is about to fall entirely on my tiny shoulders.

But most of all, of course, is the sadness, the sense of loss which has become so familiar to me in recent years as my elders have disappeared from my life one by one.  I feel like an infantryman watching his front line of defense mowed down before him, forced to continue marching onward into danger without their protection, guidance, or love. 

It is the love that I will miss the most, and in these past few days, I've realized just how much my aunt loved me.  It's hard to lose those people in the world who still see you as a perfect, shining star, with all the possibility you had as a child still dwelling within you.  

She has been completely lucid during all of this, and I've been visiting her early in the morning before any of her other friends and family come around.  I've had to ask some hard questions, things we didn't quite get around to taking care of this summer as we handled all the business related to my uncle's death. 

"I'm worried about you," she told me the other morning, her voice barely a whisper.

"You don't have to worry about me," I answered, trying hard to swallow the tears. 

"Well, I am," she insisted, in the soft southern drawl which seems to have become more pronounced since her illness. "Don't you cry for me.  You know this is what I wanted."

Yesterday afternoon the hospice nurse told us she had moved into the phase known as "actively dying."  I didn't need a nurse to tell me that, for I've become more familiar with the look of this process than I ever expected I would.  We can't rouse her anymore, and her inveterate talkativeness (which I admit could occasionally grate my last nerve) is now silenced for good. 

So I came home in the middle of the day for the first time in a week, hungry for a respite of normalcy.  I did some laundry and hung it on the line, letting the fresh autumn breeze whip it clean and free of wrinkles.  I sat on the porch and listened to the gentle chords of my wind chimes.  I took a walk with my dogs. 

Like a swimmer coming to the surface, I gulped in the sweet, fresh air, and tried to breathe.

The Longest Day

Hospital room days are long and strange.  Especially for someone like me, someone who is never still for very long, never sits in one place for too many hours at a time, someone who likes to be engaged in purposeful activity.  There is little of that in a hospital, it seems, at least when you're the one doing the waiting.   Waiting for tests to be done, for blood to be drawn, for nurses to come with much needed pain medication or to turn off beeping IV machines. 

And there is much wondering and worrying, too.  What will the test results show?  How many more invasive procedures will be called for?  What will the doctors recommend? And what will the repurcussions be?

In the three months since my uncle's death, my aunt has become even more frail than she was before.  My mother believes she's literally starving herself to death, and there is some truth in this, for she seems to exist on a diet of little more than cookies, cake, or the occasional bowl of cereal.  "Food tastes terrible to me," she says.  "I just like my cookies."

Her cookie diet has obviously not been too helpful, because now her pancreas is infected, her liver enzymes are high, and her gall bladder is on the verge of complete mutiny.  She's so debilitated, she can't fight the infections, so they're giving her protein through a central intravenous line.  And any thoughts of removing that defective gall bladder are on hold until the pancreatic infection clears up.

All this is a lot for a frail 85 year old.  And so we wait and worry about what will happen in the future...will she ever be strong enough to go home?  Must I start the nursing home search all over again?

The length of the day was mitigated by the presence of two wonderful women - nieces from my uncle's side of the family who have become like sisters to me.  They are a large, close knit family, and their love and caring for one another reminds me again of how much I've missed as an "only."  I'm more than grateful for the way they've embraced me and cared for me.  So we've told stories, and talked, and shared things about our families.  It's helped to pass the time and to lift our spirits as well.

Nevertheless, it's been a very long day.

I'm afraid there are lots more to come.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I had barely settled in here at the Florida house...been grocery shopping, been to the library to get a couple of books, got the car uncovered and filled up with gas.   We enjoyed a simple dinner at home, watching some of the things recorded on our TiVo.  I had cleaned up the kitchen, taken a quick walk around the neighborhood (hello favorite pond, and snowy egrets) and had just poured a glass of Chardonnay in expectation of last night's new episode of Glee. Then the phone rang.

"I hate like hell to tell you this," my mother said when I answered.  "But Aunt L.'s in the hospital."  This is my recently widowed aunt, the left behind member of the couple who were like second parents to me. 

"Dear God, what now?" I asked.

"She was in terrible pain in her abdomen all day, and nauseous," my mother continued,  " so her friend took her into emergency.  They're doing an MRI to see what's going on.

At 11:00, I fell exhausted into bed.  We had been up since 4:30 a.m., and my eyes wouldn't stay open any longer.  This morning, at 7:30, the phone rings again.

"It's not good," my mother tells me.  "They found numerous masses, and think they could be cancerous."  My aunt's history of colon cancer four years ago certainly makes this a likely conclusion.

I immediately start searching for a flight home, and am lucky enough to get the last seat on a Northwest flight leaving at 1:00 pm.  So within the next 30 minutes, my dear husband will be driving me to the airport. 

There is definitely a surreal quality to this...exactly three months ago yesterday, on another Wednesday evening, my uncle fell and fractured his hip.  There followed five days of waiting, wondering, worrying...and by Monday of the following week, he was gone. 

"I'm ready to go be with Tex," she said to me this morning when I talked to her.  "You know I'm ready to see the Lord."

Indeed, she's been  telling me that a lot in the last three months.  And I wonder if there does come a time when you feel ready to relinquish the hold on life the rest of us clutch so frantically.  If most everyone you love is gone, if your life no longer resembles any of the hopes or dreams you had for it, if your faith in the hereafter is so strong that Heaven beckons like a soft bed after a long hard day.  

This morning the doctors say that these masses may not be cancer...that for sure her gall bladder is leaking, her pancreas is inflamed.  More tests are in order, they tell us.  Endoscopy, CT scans.  Surgery, perhaps tomorrow.

So, here I go home.

And here we go again.