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