death

You Didn’t Want to Die

juliagrant15 Comments

IMG_2097.jpgNancy, after being diagnosed with Stage IV Cancer, leaning up against daughter Maia in 2013, less than a year before she died.

**This blog was written within a year of Nancy’s death, but I wasn’t ready to finish it until just now.

You didn’t want to die.  No one really wants to die, do they?  I’ve heard of 94 year olds who went out kicking and screaming, certain that it wasn’t yet their time, begging for one more chemo treatment, more time, more life.   You were 59, not quite young enough to be considered truly tragic, but not quite old enough to say: okay, she’s lived her life, fulfilled her mission.  You left behind two teenaged daughters and a widow whose despair at losing you would inhabit her days for months and years to come.  Not quite time for me to be a widow, I say, although at 61 it wasn’t exactly shocking to lose a spouse.  Two adolescents who looked around at all the friends they knew who had two living parents.  Even those with divorced parents who hate each other still have two living parents. And those with a parent who has vanished from the scene know that they inhabit the earth, somewhere, somehow.  Some day that missing parent might be found.  I’m not sure which is worse, the potential of a parent being found who has vanished, or one who has vanished permanently.   There is no hope of being found.

But, no, you really didn’t want to die—in part, because you knew how terribly we would miss you; in part, because you couldn’t bear to think that you would no longer be a part of our lives.  You couldn’t imagine not seeing the hallmarks of our daughter’s progress through adulthood: graduations, first jobs, maybe even weddings and grandchildren.  You couldn’t imagine not going to the garden shop with Linda first thing in the spring looking for something new to plant or watching for the lilacs to magically appear after a miserable Michigan winter.    Perhaps you wondered what it would feel like not to have me by your side, holding you and sharing the stories of our lives together. You suffered unbelievable agony thinking that you might not see the ocean of Cape Cod once more, where you spent every summer of your childhood and where your brother and his wife and children now reside.  You wondered at not only how you would bear to lose your closest family but your dearest friends, who surrounded your bedside with heartfelt vigilance during your last days.

You relished the beauty of this world: sunsets, moving water, grass, plants, and animals.  I brought you home from the hospital one summer afternoon, and—sick as you were—the first thing you did was to lie down in the grass, staring out at the blue sky and sun. Some days I would find you sitting in the winter in the outside yard, with your hat and coat on, just sitting, wanting to feel whatever dim glimmer of sun might be found on a winter day in Michigan.   You wanted to be in and of this world.

You lashed out at me at the end.  How could I be sitting in your hospital room with a Starbucks cup of coffee in my hand, fortunate enough to be able to leave the room, walk through the hospital, and even outside of its doors to fortify my need for expensive coffee?  When, finally, you asked me if you were really dying, about three days prior to your actual death and I said, “yes,” you said, “Thanks for sharing that with me!” with sarcasm unexpected from someone who was dying.    And, yet, you also listened to my cough as you lay there, and in your most urgent dying breath said, “Go to the doctor!”  And in between the grumbles and complaints, there were murmurs of “I love you,” as I moved in and out of caring for you in your last weeks of life.

When we got you home to hospice, I could finally lay by your side.  The morphine had ensured that no bones would hurt as I cuddled next to you.   We held hands, and I felt your grip, warm and firm.    Hey, I’ll take what I can get.   We had only a week in hospice at home, hardly time to come to grips with what was happening, at what we were losing, before you slipped into unconsciousness.

And there was the time—maybe a month before you died—when we confessed how happy we had been to have found each other; how each one of us had worried that we might live without love.   How fortunate we were to have made a home for ourselves and our children.  We had those moments.  But not enough of them.

I’ve come to terms with your anger after 3 ½ years.   You were given the short end of the stick, while I was given the gift of life, even when it didn’t feel like a gift at times.  But still, when I catch sight of a shimmer of peachy sun against the background of our luminescent Michigan winters, I can sense the longing that you must have felt as you said goodbye to the earthly world.

 

The Gift

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Chatham Village
Main Street, Chatham Village, Cape Cod

Christmas Eve in 2014 was just three months shy of the death of Nancy.  The children and I were visiting Nancy’s family in Chatham, Cape Cod, which was often our tradition. I had geared myself up to exude at least some Christmas cheer, sharing holiday greetings, hugging Nancy’s nieces and nephews, and stacking up the gifts under the Christmas tree. Nancy’s family members were optimistic people, even through many tragedies in their lives, so I tried to immerse myself in their holiday activities, and keep my grieving to a minimum.

The family was large and extremely close knit: throughout the holidays, Jack, Nancy’s brother and his wife Beth would be surrounded by all of their five grown children, their spouses, and Nancy’s mother and brother Pete.

Jack, Nancy’s oldest brother, and his wife Beth had been stalwarts in the life of our family. Jack’s love for Nancy was intense. The two siblings’ bond likely had been strengthened by the loss of their sister when she was just twenty-eight. But they had been close buddies since childhood, routinely “borrowing” idle sailboats in Chatham and sharing a love for the sea and boats ever since.

Jack’s warm and gregarious wife Beth had fostered the relationship of the two families, cheerfully visiting Michigan with Jack on regular occasions, and spending many holidays and vacations with us.  They had been second parents to our children, caring for them while Nancy had undergone chemotherapy, and walking with us through many moments of our life, both joyful and dark.

The Gardner home in Chatham had been a place of joy and respite for our family for several years. It was a large rambling home close to the ocean, the fish pier and Chatham’s antique downtown.   The kids made annual treks to the infamous Candy Manor, and I had often visited the coffee shop where regulars would gather on the benches facing Main Street during my early morning walks.   On Friday evenings, folks laid out their blankets early in order to occupy a place on the lawn to enjoy the Chatham band concerts, which featured old timey music, with elderly couples gracefully dancing to big band music and children joining in on the bunny hop. Chatham was almost the cliché of the small town all-American village, although its wealth shielded it from the harsher truths of life.

The Gardner’s had moved to the village shortly before retirement, and Jack had bought a boat, which he had lovingly named the “Nancy Alice” (Alice was Nancy’s middle name). The boat became a centerpiece around which many vacations revolved.   Jack often took us out to the deep waters so that we could marvel at the whales that cavorted off Chatham’s shore. On one such trip, we were surrounded by whales swirling dangerously close to the boat, so that we had to take off in fear that the boat would be tossed into the ocean waters as the animals played. Still, even that was part of the fun. There were so many photos of Nancy on that boat, completely at home on the ocean and with her family.

Since Jack moved to Chatham he had taken on the vocation of fishing with a vengeance. Jack had often enticed the girls, and sometimes Nancy, into rising at 5 a.m. to go deep-sea fishing at sunrise. Photos of Regina and Maia struggling under the weight of huge fish with extravagant smiles on their faces had elicited sighs of envy and admiration from many, especially my colleagues who were fishing aficionados.   The memories of that house and of that place had always included Nancy. Surrounded by her family and the sea, there was perhaps nowhere on earth where she was more joyous.

On the Christmas Eve after Nancy’s death, the Gardner’s were hosts extraordinaire, providing everything needed for their visitors to have a good time. Beth had been busy all day long, making preparations for the feasts for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. On Christmas Eve, I’d been eating wonderful lobster salad sandwiches and drinking good red wine. We engaged in a rollicking “Yankee Swap,” involved picking out an anonymous gift, and then swapping with others until the last player got to choose the final gift. Finally, the group was onto another rousing game of Guestures, a fast-paced charades game, which generated much silliness and hilarity.

Gardner Clan on Christmas Eve, 2014

But I had gotten tired of all the revelry and needed to retreat to my room, where I could gather my thoughts and experience feelings that were out of place in a merry Christmas Eve gathering.  The hollowness that lurked behind my holiday persona was overtaking me.

Fortunately, Beth had chosen to give me a different guest room than the one Nancy and I had shared year after year.  Because Nancy was ill, we had been granted what was arguably the most beautiful room in the house on the ground floor and just off the deck.   At first, Beth thought that I might sleep in that room on this visit, but, fortunately, she changed her mind when other visitors arrived. I was relieved.

How could I now sleep in that room, where looking through the window you could see the ocean peaking through the horizon, where you could walk out on the deck to view the placid waters of the salt water pond at the bottom of the hill, the vibrant rambling red roses, and the humming birds at the feeder? Nancy had often relaxed, as she did so well, lying on the hammock or lounging on a chair on the deck right outside of our bedroom door with a cup of coffee in hands, swaying to the warm breezes from the nearby surf.

Nancy Relaxing on the Deck
Nancy Relaxing on the Deck

In the middle of July, Jack and Beth had held a wedding party in our honor, and everything in that room, from the bedding to the curtains and the view, was the same as it had been during that short respite from Nancy’s treatment. The thought of sleeping in a place that had brought so much pleasure to her was seemingly unendurable.

But, thankfully, I was assigned to sleep in a room where I had never slept before and which had recently been redecorated. The room was restful; the calm colors of brown and blue provided me with a space that was comfortingly neutral, where I could get away from the holiday frivolity when I needed to.

My daughters slept in the room just next door to me with two twin beds. I was grateful to have a space where I could retreat when I needed to, but appreciated the close proximity to the girls.  My deep loneliness was abated when Maia came home from school for the holidays, for not only Nancy but Maia had also left home this past fall, leaving Regina and I with a house that was half empty.   Although Maia did not grieve overtly often, whenever I expressed my pain an angelic look would come over her face and she would lovingly comfort me.   But there were days over the holiday, when her grief did overcome her, and she had difficulty sleeping. One day she told me that she could not bear to see anyone connected with Nancy, and spent the day alone in her room.

But on Christmas Eve she had enjoyed the games.   Still, she had difficulty sleeping. After reading and thinking, I fell into a sleep, which, if not quite restful, was at least a relief.   Later that night, I felt a thump in my bed.   Thinking it was Regina who had often asked me to sleep with her at home, I began talking to her, but she did not answer me. My next thought was that someone had gotten into the wrong bed. But, no, it was my daughter Maia (who was hearing impaired and could not hear me), who had not joined me in bed for many years.   She was seventeen now. I felt her warmth beside me, the solidity and roundness of her being.   After a few minutes, she put her head on my chest, wrapped her arm around me and said: “I’m so glad that you’re my mother.” I pulled her closer to myself, and relaxed into the restorative warmth of her being.   This was my gift on Christmas Eve: the love of my children and the legacy of my life with Nancy.

Me and my Girls, post Nancy: left to right, Maia, Regina, Julia
Me and my Girls, post Nancy: left to right, Maia, Regina, Julia

The Mourning House

juliagrant15 Comments

 

I currently sleep in the guest room of my house. The other room I used to sleep in – which I have been calling the “hospice room”–is now a more hallowed space. That room was redesigned just prior to death of the woman who had accompanied me through life and parenting for 27 years. We’d only been married for 6 months, due to a 5-hour period during which same-sex couples were allowed to marry in Michigan.  The death was unanticipated; diagnosis of advanced breast cancer, just one year earlier had led us to believe we had “years” instead of a year to share our lives together. Once a partner, spouse, and co-parent, I must now try on the identity of widow, while existing inside of a house that no longer feels like home.

In the hospice room, the hospital bed is gone, but there are many artifacts put in place for healing purposes. A Buddha statue from Sri Lanka donated by my sister for good luck; framed close-ups of photos of orchids taken by our daughter when we went to the orchid show last year; a print of the magnificent sand hill cranes whose visits to the wetlands of Michigan we witnessed every October.

Artifacts from the hospice room
Artifacts from the hospice room

When I walk through that room I see not the space where my partner and I once slept together, did our nightly roundup of the day’s events, and watched our favorite television shows. Once I had listened to Nancy whisper “sleep with angels, darlin’” each night before we switched off the lights. Now, I see a kind of vacuous shrine that I don’t wish to disturb.

The hospice room is artful. Our antique mahogany bed is spread with a treasured cover from Nepal, and its geometric purple and green hues are echoed in the pillows and in the lilac paint on the walls.   Nancy has left many objects containing memorabilia—cigar boxes, a pewter bowl, an old candy tin.   When I am brave enough to look through them I find weathered photos of her father and grandparents in sepia, small jewelry boxes containing antique rings and pearls, the invitation to her parents’ wedding in 1950, the baby shoes of our daughters. It contains remnants of a life I once was part of.

In the guest room where I sleep, I still feel like a visitor. The room remains the same as when it housed guests, not particularly inviting and somewhat disturbingly impersonal. The colors clash: pink curtains, a blue patterned quilt, walls painted a jolting lime green.  A large unadorned bed dominates the smallish room. It’s not designed for comfort or charm. But in my current uncomfortable frame of mind, it seems to fit my requirements.

A perennial basket of unfolded laundry resides in the corner of the anonymous space where I now reside. My computer, my refuge, stands ready for my use, although I still can’t find a show I want to watch or a book I want to read.   Scanning facebook, reading through emails, I seek connections to fill the stillness that stretches before me.

The rest of the house is also still somewhat alien territory, transformed by the permanent vacancy of one of its occupants. My sprightly teenaged daughter, whose easy laughter hasn’t changed much since toddlerhood, begs me to go upstairs with her at night, and she will not go back downstairs again without me, spooked by a house that is devoid of her other mother. She asks me to accompany her to the bathroom at night and in the early dark mornings. She fears that Nancy is somehow here in the house as a ghost, but perhaps not as much as she fears living in a house where Nancy no longer exists.

Nancy’s mother says she cannot bear to visit us in this place, not while the painful memories of her daughter seem to bounce off every surface of the house. But my daughter and I must live in this mourning house, trying to find our way to another kind of home where we can co-exist with what is here and what is not.