Walking arm in arm with my thirteen year old granddaughter from the Farmer’s Market to lunch, I said, “Lluvia, I love having you with me and spending time together, but you need to know that Grandma won’t need you to be with me 24/7 for very long. I’m going to be all right.”
It was the day after Larry died, and for the next week everyone was on Grandma watch, making sure I ate, slept, had someone with me to help make decisions, someone to drive my car, take me wherever I needed to go, remove reminders of constant medical care from the house. I was grateful, I was tired, I was numb. As I reassured my family that I was going to be all right, it was a way to assure myself. It was my way of getting through for three years. It was drawing on my survival mode from forty-five years before, widowed at 24, keeping the promise I made to my military husband, headed to Viet Nam, to be strong, to be brave. It all kicked in again.
These days I find myself having conversations with friends and acquaintances who mention something from Larry’s Memorial service and I realize I hadn’t known they were there, or I have forgotten. I thought I was prepared to keep track, to be able to say thank you, to acknowledge their caring, to let their love uphold me. Maybe not, until now.
I also hear myself retelling that last week in the hospital, reliving the very last day, the day I knew Larry was dying, when he was having visions of “the girl in the yellow dress” standing at the foot of his bed. Waiting? When he was asking over and over why he was in a hospital bed when he had just been sitting in another room, filled with light. Strong again and free from pain. When he unwrapped and offered me an imaginary piece of chocolate. Sharing his love for me.
I left that afternoon to go to the doctor. I had never recovered from the hacking cough and laryngitis I experienced on our trip to Alaska. It had been six weeks. When she diagnosed a sinus infection, an ear infection, and bronchitis, she prescribed antibiotics, an inhaler, and codeine laced cough syrup. She urged me to go home to rest. Larry and I talked once that evening on the phone. His doctor called to update me. I went to bed. I slept.
When the phone announced the call from St. Peter’s Hospital at 6 am, I knew. I drove to a nearly empty parking lot, parked at an angle near the front door. I walked past the hand lettered sign on his hospital room door which said, Do Not Enter.
The room was sterile, all tubes and machines removed. His face was shaved. His hand was still warm.
Sometimes I think I should have stayed that night, I should have been there, I should have been holding his hand when he died. He should not have died alone. I think there should have been last minute assurances that he could let go, that it would be easier if I told him again I would be all right.
I’m tired of “shoulding” myself.
February 10, 2014, when he was first hospitalized with renal failure, when he was so very sick, we weren’t sure he would live. His words to me in the emergency room were, “I want you to know I’ve had a good life.”
It was then we said our preliminary good-byes, when I first gave him permission to let go of this world, that he needn’t worry about me, I would miss him, but I would be all right. I scoffed when he told me he wanted me to get married again, to find love. I knew that the pain of another loss would be more than I can bear. I was certain that even with a kidney transplant, his life would be limited, restricted. I anticipated this loss for the next three and a half years.
It washed over me with the force of a tsunami this week. I knew he was dying. I went home. I would not, could not stay to give him permission to let go of this world. Although it was the most healing thing for his body, to release his soul, I could not bear it. I am waiting to be all right.
Bonnie, I went through some of the same emotions when my Mom died in 2002. Even though I have a sister and had a brother and we are a close, caring family, because I lived the closest to Mom while she was at Wesley, I was named the person to be called in case of an emergency. My sister, her husband and I were beginning a vacation when we got the word she was in the hospital and it didn't 'look good.' She died within the week and I was filled with guilt because I wasn't there with her when she died, even though we were headed back home. The distance was just too great for us to get home. I was very vocal to friends about my guilt and the word got to Rev. Dorothy Kimbrell somehow and the following Sunday she found me, took my hands in hers and told me that she had heard I was feeling guilty. And, then she said, to 'Stop it! Just, stop it!" Everyone at Wesley knew Mom, it seemed, and that I was around nearly every day during all the months she was in the care center. Dorothy knew it and knew how much I cared for Mom and she would have none of me feeling guilty. The amazing part was that when she told me to stop feeling guilty, a burden was lifted off my shoulders. It was as if I could let go of Mom; I knew she was whole once more and that she was OK and that I would be. I felt lighter, certainly was grieving, but did not feel guilty any longer. We each deal with death in personal ways and God, through Dorothy Kimbrell, helped to give me permission to let Mom go. Being 'all right' takes awhile, but the mysteries that we deal with during these moments help us be all right. This, I believe.
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