“She did it!,” my wife beamed over the phone. “Lilly actually walked peacefully with Baby!”
Baby is a neighbor’s Shih Tzu toward whom our Boston terrier has had unpredictable reactions. Though Lilly boasts a solid roster of canine playmates, she cannot count any small and/or shaggy dogs among them.
This was a major development.
Susan recounted the steps she and our neighbor took along their shared mile-long path. She noted that — because the dogs were walking parallel to each other — there was little chance for mis-cues in canine etiquette that might kindle sparks. We’d seen this work before in our now-disbanded pet playgroup and Susan was thrilled to witness it again.
I was thrilled, too, even from 2000 miles away.
Usually, I collect my family’s “news feeds” live when I return home from work. These days, I either get them from my lonely hotel room or the recliner at my mom’s bedside where I’ve spent every other day over the past two weeks watching her fever surge and her life slip away.
I consider it a sacred charge to comfort the one who gave me life and continued to love me even when I made her life difficult. Between administering cold compresses and the odd sip of liquid when she gestures for it, I regale her with soft songs and patter about the bunch of precocious kids she had to raise in our late-1960s blended family. Her subtle shifts in posture and facial expression suggest I may be reaching her, but who knows.
Last week, I kissed her forehead and affirmed that each of her children can fend for themselves, so it was okay for her to “go.” With a damp washcloth, I wiped the gunk from the corner of her closed eyes and thanked her for upgrading the family life of this once lost 12-year-old. I named each family member who has “crossed over” and told her that Papa Paul was waiting to deal another cutthroat round of “500” Rummy.
Her reply in the thinnest of voices were the last words I’ve heard her utter:
“I don’t want to go.”
Paradoxically, being with my mom during her end of life does not drain the life from me, it refills it — as long as I’m in her presence. Soon as I complete the “warm hand-off” to the evening caregiver and make my way “home” in a driving rain, I start chewing the mental cud of the unknowable. Is mom suffering? Is she engaged in some kind of internal struggle? Do the chemical changes in her dying brain preclude such cognitive sparring? When will she surrender?
I brush the electronic key card over the reader of room 305 and walk in. There’s no wife to wrap my arms around, no Lilly to lick my nose or hike her tush up when I scratch her back. There is only the internal replay of my mom’s primary provider: Mom is the strongest-willed person she’d ever met. They can’t really explain why someone stripped to skin and bone hangs on. While some men wait for their families to fully assemble before they die, most women wait for their families to disburse.
My stash of non-perishables to the left of the TV waits to be fashioned into some semblance of dinner. The chilled and uneaten yogurt sitting on mom’s bedside table is probably warm by now.
As the hours-to-days forecast of two weeks ago leans forward into weeks — possibly a month — I ask myself whether I’ve said enough goodbyes for now.
Perhaps it’s time to say hello again.