Last Sunday was one of those days that you're glad don't come around very often. It was a gray day, a sad day, a day that confirmed the fragility and brevity of life.
Let me tell you about it.
Last Sunday was the second day after Christmas. All the hurrying and scurrying and anticipation of the holiday were past and it was the last day of the Christmas holiday for both my wife and I as we were to return to work the next day. The only thing on the agenda for Sunday was a long-anticipated visit from some friends that were in town for the holidays from Arizona. These dear friends of ours were due at our house later in the day and we'd planned for some conversation, some dinner and a lot of laughing and friendly camaraderie. At least that was the plan until we received our first of three phone calls for the day. The female half of the twosome we were expecting was on the phone and she was the one to pass on the bad news to us. Apparently they'd both caught some sort of virus on the airplane while on their way back East and were really suffering from it. They both seemed to have the typical flu symptoms (which I won't go into detail about) along with the special prize of a monumental ear infection for her which required a call to Arizona to her doctor for a prescription to be picked up here in Ohio.
She sounded awful.
I offered our sympathies and told her that it was OK that they couldn't come visit. They were quite obviously sick and it'd be much better for them to just rest and try to get better. I told her that we'd get together the next time they were in town and to take good care of themselves. After hearing the news I was ashamed to say that I was relieved a bit that we wouldn't be exposed to whatever they were suffering with. I'd been fighting a respiratory problem for a couple months and really didn't relish getting ill again.
I hung up and told my wife that we weren't getting any company and the reason why. She was sad that we wouldn't be getting together but understood completely.
The second phone call came soon after the first. It was my step-sister Kathy. We usually got together with her and her side of the family sometime around Christmas for a gift exchange, a dinner and some family fellowship. This get together hadn't occurred yet this year and we'd become concerned as to the reason why. Kathy was usually so meticulous and efficient insofar as planning things and informing people about those plans. She'd called to apologize and to let us know that they'd been busy with a death and funeral of a relatives on her side of the family. This person, a cousin I believe, had died young and had interrupted their normal holiday schedule. She was now back on track and wanted us to know that she'd set up a get together at the “party” room at her mother's condo. It was scheduled for the following weekend and she'd like us to come and join in the festivities. And don't forget a covered dish! We of course said yes, and soon were marking next Sunday in our calendar.
The third call was much more serious. It was from a close friend of my wife's aunt Jeannine. She told my wife that her aunt had taken a turn for the worse in her health, she was in the emergency room of a hospital in a town about 40 miles from home and the doctors had informed her that, if Jeannine had any relatives, they ought to come quickly if they wanted to say goodbye to her.
My wife hung up the phone and informed me of what she'd learned. I looked at her stricken face and told her that it was up to her if she wanted to go see her. If she wanted to go, I'd of course go with her. She thought about it for a minute or two and agreed that we probably ought to.
I looked up the location of the hospital on the computer and made a map of how to get there. Soon we were in the car and heading south.
It was a quiet trip down the state highways toward the town where her aunt waited. We discussed Jeannine's history among ourselves as we traveled. She'd been my wife's father's youngest sister. She'd never married and had lived with her sister Norma until Norma had passed away some years ago. She then lived alone with her dogs. She was a incorrigible bingo player and that was pretty much her life for the last decade or two, home with the dogs or out playing bingo most evenings of the week. She was a lifelong smoker until emphysema forced her to quit and put her in an oxygen mask. She grew somewhat senile several years ago and had to be moved into an assisted living facility. Then it was into a nursing home when she had trouble taking care of herself even in the assisted living environment. Several trips to the emergency room for various ailments this past year had occurred and it looked like this might be her last one.
The day was typical for late December in Ohio – gray skies, cold and windy with a promise of snow to start later in the day. The trees were all bare and leafless and there was ice edging the ponds and streams we passed by. We drove through the small towns and through the countryside, each of us deep in thought about what was waiting for us when we reached our destination.
The hospital sat on the top of a hill on the northeast side of the city. Since it was a Sunday, the main entrance was open but the main information desk was unmanned. We decided to drive over to the other side of the building where the emergency room entrance was instead of trying to find it through unfamiliar hospital corridors.
We went into the emergency entrance and my wife gave the on-duty receptionist her aunt's name. We were soon met by Jeannine's friend Stacy, who tearfully led us through several automatic doors and toward one of the emergency area's treatment rooms. Before we entered we spoke to a doctor who was extremely professional and informed us that Jeannine was not expected to live much longer. She had reached that point where her body was shutting down and there was little that could be done for her except keep her comfortable and just be with her. We then entered the treatment room. My wife's aunt lay on the hospital bed. She had four IV's plugged into her, a respirator and several monitors, all of which were blinking, chirping and beeping, displaying numbers and wiggly lines, charting and displaying an old woman's last hour. Stacy's mother and daughter were in the room with her along with a nurse and another doctor.
My wife walked up to the side of the bed and gazed at her aunt. She broke down for a minute and cried, realizing that her aunt was soon to depart this world and that her last relative from her father's generation was soon to be no more. Before long the Kleenex boxes were being passed around and many a wet eye was being wiped.
Jeannine had requested that no heroic measures were to be taken at this time, so the doctor told us that they were now going to unplug her from the devices. We were ushered out of the room while this procedure was undertaken and then allowed to return. The old woman didn't seem to be suffering. She lay quietly and slowly breathed. I honestly don't think she knew we were there although we'd like to think she did. The nurses and doctors left us with her to say our goodbyes. Occasionally one of the nurses would return to the room, gently check her pulse along her neck then bend over and listen for her respiration. You could see the caring in all the hospital staff's faces. Jeannine's friends talked to her and told her she would soon be with her sister and brother and her mom and dad. The nurse returned for the second or third time and checked the pulse and respiration again. The doctor stepped in about that time and looked at the nurse. The nurse said, “She's gone.” The doctor looked at the wall clock and said, “Make it 1600.”
I looked at the body on the bed. It looked identical to what was there a minute ago except that now it was still. She was gone.
It was such a gradual thing I never did actually see when it happened.
There were more tears then and the Kleenex boxes made another couple rounds.
A hospital administrator came in after about ten minutes and took down some information as to which funeral home was taking care of Jeannine and some other facts pertaining to “arrangements”. She had take care of her own arrangements before she had died, so most of the questions were pro forma.
The five of us talked for a while about Jeannine's life and what it had meant for us. We even chuckled a bit on her eccentricities, which she had many. Before departing we exchanged some phone numbers and agreed to meet as soon as practicable for a memorial service. We hugged each other and departed.
On the drive home my wife and I reminisced a bit about our memories of Jeannine. About how her and her sister Norma would come visit us when we were camping at the lake near their home, how we'd see them in the bingo parlors when we were in their hometown playing, how Jennine always had dogs and how many times they were mean to everyone except her. She had the touch with them. That lead to more conversation about the rest of her family, especially her grandfather and grandmother. Then the conversation died out and we were left with our own thoughts on life, death and how very mortal we all were.
The snow started falling from the dark sky about 20 minutes before we arrived back home, the flakes silently drifting down through the twin cones of the headlights, whitening the roads and lightly frosting the dark trees.
And so our Sunday ended.
In retrospect it seems like a dream, or perhaps something seen on a television show a long time ago – a black and white television show. Perhaps Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare. The hospital bed. The sobbing relatives. The flatline on the monitor. The doctor with his white coat.
But it was no television show. It was real.
As real as death always is.
So I took a moment and, in my heart, I wished Jeannine well on her journey. May her reunion with her mother, father and sister and brother be as joyous as possible, may her dogs be there to greet their loving mistress, may heaven's bingo cards all be lucky and may she look kindly down upon her niece and her husband.
She will be missed.
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