I sat nearby watching and listening as life left her body. I saw her body relax, her hand fall to her lap, her eyes close. I heard her breaths become shallower and further apart. I heard the tell-tell sound of lungs ending their work.
Even so, when she was gone, I had to check. I had to feel her pulse…had to watch her chest to see if it would rise one more time.
This woman who had shared her life with me, who had expressed her joys and fears to me, who on the last day of her life reached out for me and fell into my arms laying her head on my shoulder..holding on to me with a grip not willing to let go…..this woman who I offered to walk through the last days of her life with had passed into that realm that those of us still alive can only imagine. And…I just couldn’t believe it.
Odd. Very odd that I had served as her hospice chaplain, had discussed end of life concerns with her and yet when the time came that we both had been expecting, even planning for…it did not seem real to me.
Of course I naturally stepped into my task mode and made the necessary phone calls, made sure the family was ok, sat with them until there was nothing more I could do. But…that feeling, that disbelief of what I KNEW...it was so odd and yet…so familiar.
I did the same thing when Daddy died. I heard him release his last breath. I saw the pulse in his neck stop beating. I saw Sue’s affirming nod. And yet…for a brief moment, with my hand on the top of his head I knew, just knew I continued to feel a pulse there…didn’t I? Then, as with Doris, I began the tasks I had been instructed to. I made the phone calls. I pulled his meds out of the drawer. I welcomed the old school friend who, now working with Oakey’s, came to take the body away.
Yes, I did cry…some. I wept on and off over the next few days…months. It wasn’t until a friend’s death and burial in the same cemetery a year later that the sobs came. How long will it take this time?
Odd, isn’t it, how things that we know so absolutely can take us so long to admit...or perhaps…live into.
2 comments:
Thanks, little(& so grown up) sister for putting into words that moment of belief/disbelief that we all experienced at Daddy's leaving.
Thanks for naming that mode, "task mode" When my mom died, I immediately left her body, and started on phone calls. When I came back in the room, I had a strong sense that her spirit had lingered and only now was leaving. I had missed that sweet time with my need to do something. Now I just want to sit quietly with the body for some time, and think of the person who is gone ahead of me.
Post a Comment