Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone

Family History (2)

(2001, 1988, 1991)

The husband looks down at his wife and tries to count the number of times he has stood by her side in a hospital. The birth of their two children; her gall-bladder operation; the day she fainted after their son's tonsils were successfully removed, causing her to be briefly admitted herself; and then the surgeries and post-op stays dating back to August, 1997. A lot of times, he concludes. He doesn't want to think about how many times, in less than five years, he and his children have been obliged to sit-and sleep-in uncomfortable chairs while the woman they love suffered and recovered.

It's not time to think about it yet, he thinks. We're not ready to think about that (but it's out there to be thought about; everyone thinks about it, even in the abstract, even when they're healthy, even when there's no good reason to give those thoughts the time of day). He doesn't want to think about it, but sometimes the mind goes where it wants and there's not a whole hell of a lot you can do about it.

...

His father had gone first, which wasn't the way he'd anticipated it, as his father had been exceptionally, almost unusually healthy, unlike his mother. In retrospect, he'd come to understand that things had worked out for the best, as they usually tended to do. Had his father been left behind it would have been undesirable for all involved, not least his father. True, his father had an abundance of Irish vitality and an epic constitution, but his mother possessed the real strength.

It had been sudden-a phone call from one of his sisters. No time to prepare or react, only to process the news. Daddy is dead. There was an accident. Someone, another elderly man actually, had blown right through the red light, hitting his father in the crosswalk as he walked to the preschool to pick up his granddaughter, like he did every afternoon. I never saw the light change, the man tearfully claimed, repeating the apology over and over, the police officer reported.

Once the shock wore off, he found he felt more pity for the driver than for anyone else, even for his mother, who had her memories and her children. This man was unmarried, a blue-collar state employee afraid to retire, who would now live out his years knowing he'd taken another man's life. Whether he turned to the past or the future, he'd be equally trapped in either direction, asking himself, Why did this happen? How could this happen? The fact was, all of us have blasted past yellow lights, countless times, and any of those acts might have resulted in an accident that took some stranger's father, husband, or son.

His mother hung on for almost exactly three years. He was stunned how quickly the body will deteriorate once the will to live dissolves. He told himself during his father's funeral that while a sudden, unexpected death left the loved ones in a stupor, it was the best way for a person to go.

He had plenty of time to anticipate his mother's death, and began to prepare himself, instinctively, right after his father's funeral. There was no effective way to fortify oneself for the inevitable loss of one's parents. It wasn't something a healthy individual was disposed to linger upon. There was little comfort or insight to be gleaned from excessive introspection. It just finally, simply happened.

Near the end, when it became clear she wasn't leaving the hospital, he acknowledged he might not be by her side when she passed away.

He understood this was what he'd been spared by his father's abrupt death. And as pitiful as it would have been to endure, watching his father wither away would have been tolerable. The prospect of having to witness the will to fight ebbing from his mother's body inspired a fear that swelled against the foundation he had taken a lifetime to cultivate.

Another call, from his older sister this time: They think she had a stroke. Her health had been failing for the last few months, and it was obvious things were winding down. He spent three days at the hospital, flying up from Virginia, just as his wife had done a little over a decade before to be with her dying mother. He wasn't sure what to expect, but he needn't have worried. Nothing happened. His mother was mostly unconscious, preferable to being awake and suffering. But after three days it started to seem like she was defying him, testing his faith. He knew, on some level, that this was stress and lack of sleep. Still, he felt convinced she would continue to live so long as he stayed by her side. He asked himself two questions, over and over: How long should I stay? When was it enough? He and his older sister both lived in different states, with jobs and families to oversee. He resisted those awful but irrefutable words everyone uses before, during, and after another person's death: Life goes on. How long was one expected to wait?

No one else gave him the slightest pushback when he decided to return home. Call me if anything changes, he told his younger sister as he left the hospital. Getting in the elevator he felt a foreboding, and understood he should go back and look at his mother's face one last time.

Once again he needn't have worried; his mother hung on, in and out of consciousness for another month.

He was not by her side when she went. No one was; she passed away during the night, presumably already asleep. The last few months had not been easy, but in the final analysis, it was difficult to quibble (with God? Fate?) about how each of his parents had died. No prolonged or gratuitous agony, no spiritual torment that he was aware of. At least this is what he told himself; what he tried to believe.