The Trip

Dear Chris,

I took the kids out of school the day they called me to say he was dying. Mom gave me some cash, and in about 15 or 20 minutes we were on our way to Virginia, a 12 hour drive. We were delayed as we found his eldest son in the way. We arrived at the nursing home in the small hours of the morning, after 3am, before 4. I called for directions to hear the nurse tell me he had "just passed". How many times had I delivered such news myself? I updated the kids as we got out of the car.

I walked hurriedly through the halls. The place smelled awful, like infected bedsores and urinary catheters colonized with bacteria. Like a nursing home at 3 in the morning. I found his nurse, his room.

He was not there. Only a corpse, yellow and empty like a locust's shell remained. I lay my hands on the blankets over the left forearm and cried that I was sorry; that I should have brought him home. (I had planned to bring him back to Ohio. When everything was right.)

My children were there. Were they terrified, traumatized? I was. In all my nursing career I had never seen anyone that pale and yellow, as if his whole face had been colored with a yellow highlighter. Someone had raised the foot of the bed instead of the head. Pooled blood under the skin left mottling around his neck. The odor of death was lingered. I left the room, my children trailing me. I felt like I was going to vomit.

I called his father. We waited in the day room. The tv was on. A movie, a funeral scene, the widow seeks out sex with an old boyfriend for solace. (His ghost is there, and will follow me home. I tell myself this, so that I can make things right.)
His dad comes, and we leave, knowing the yellow hull will be taken away and cremated.

There was a package in my mailbox after we came home. My brother's return address on it. I opened it and it was a book, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. There was no note, no card, no inscription. Which was a good thing. My daughter and I have decided that we hate sympathy cards.

I finished the book. It was a grief tale. I think it helps to know that others experience the same overwhelming feelings. It was a good gift.

I arranged for a memorial service, though I still don't have ashes, or a death certificate. My daughter wants the service to be "cool but spiritual". It will be.

Sarah

Grief Dreams

Dear Chris,

The three of us slept fitfully on my father-in-law's bed that night after the morning my husband died. Shadowy demons lurked in corners and doorways, peering at us. Good and Evil fought hand to hand in our dreams.
I woke sweating between my children's hot bodies. I looked at my daughter's sleeping face, eyes slightly open. I bent and kissed her forehead. Still asleep, her eyes flew open and she said "boo!" just like he would have were he trying to startle me. I tried not to panic as her hands went out and she sleep talked. "Judaism, Catholicism" then something unintelligible. "Go back to sleep, baby." I said, to comfort myself.
A lawyer from Jewish Family Services had agreed to act as his guardian when I said I could not. His little sister had given me a rosary had been keeping. I am glad that he was talking to God.
She had taken us to a beach on the bay as well. We collected stones and glass polished by the sand, little bits of shell too. I had promised to bring him home to Ohio. "In June, after school's out. The kids and I will come and get you and take you out of there." He didn't last until June. I only brought his spirit home.

Sarah

Living Dead (an ER parking lot story)

Dear Chris,
You asked me if I saved any one's life on Sunday. I always get nervous when you ask me that question. Because, if I claim credit for the resurrections I have to be responsible for the deaths too. And since I am only one, and my coworkers are so clever and knowledgeable. I am hesitant to feel heroic. I told you that no one was deathly ill, but I had forgotten the walking dead.

"We need a wheel chair."
Sounds like a benign statement, and usually it is. Meant for an elderly person with arthritis of the hips; a younger person with a sprained ankle.
"He's out there." the wife says, "He's trying to walk. He's been vomiting."
I take the wheel chair out the doors.

A zombie!

Over six feet tall, more than two hundred and fifty pounds. Arms dangling listlessly from the shoulders. One labored step at a time making his way toward me! A moment of horror movie terror grips me and I swallow hard. Then take a deep breath and wheel the chair toward the pale and expressionless human form.

"You need a wheel chair, sir?"
The zombie sits in the chair.

(Three days of vomiting alone does not explain this presentation.)
"Do you have any chronic problems?"
The wife appears at our side. "Stage four colon cancer"she chirps.
(Oh dear.)
"Doc, this guy looks like death warmed over. Colon cancer, chronic anemia, and vomiting for 3 days."

A little IV fluid, narcotic pain meds, something for nausea, and the zombie became a human again, with pink skin, freckles, and a sense of humor.

It's hard to say that we saved a life. The cancer will likely claim him in the end. Maybe we just saved him for now. But it was good to see the former president of the bus drivers' union smile as he slipped on his bi-focaled glasses, and left me for nurses in the city on a hired ambulance.

Sarah