Imbolc and the Moon of Tides
Monday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her life and death. Shadow, deconed. Paul and the storm. Ellory, too.
Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Language
Week Kavannah: Yetziratiut. Creativity. Revising Superior Wolf, learning from my writing coach. Focus.
Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren
Wisdom gained through study-my writing coach-and application-revising
One brief shining: Oh. Went to a Caring Bridge site for Warren’s sister, Kate. Once there, no posts. So. I went to my Kate’s site, started in October of 2018 and ending a month after her death in 2021. Tears.
Didn’t mean to go there. Kate’s Caring Bridge site. October 2nd, 2018. An internal bleed of unknown origin. She would not come home until October 23rd.
Peaks. Valleys. Then, lower peaks and deeper valleys. Home from the rehab facility, Brookdale, twenty-one days after she went to the E.R.
At one point her nutrition came through a central line and I had to perform a sterile ritual to hook her up to the feed bag. A precise, detail oriented business. Not my strength. But, I learned.
Not easy for either of us. At one point, after her criticism of something I’d done, I looked at her, and said, “You have to respect me!” Stuck with me. Why? Of course she had to do no such thing. Underneath. Please. See me.
Hard.
We made a sort of a peace after that. I listened harder. She did, too. The change from partners to caregiver and caretaker. Ooof.
One evening I’d finished serving our evening meal, gone into the kitchen to clean up. She said something. I couldn’t hear it. Clanking dishes and my one not so good ear. What did you say? I feel like I’m being erased. Oh. My heart fell. Of course. A fabulous cook. A pediatrician. Gone.
A dance from one stage of vulnerability to the next often found us unready. She could no longer get in the car unaided. No longer able to walk even with her walker. Her hands on my back as she climbed the stairs.
Emergency room visits and hospital hallways. More magazines in waiting rooms. Even after our talk about how much we would miss each, her final days still came as a surprise.
They began with a visit to the Emergency Room. Diagnosis: infection. She sat up in the E.R. bed, her yellow and red hospital gown showing her too thin legs, “Oh. That’s what they always say. Infection.” Still Kate.
The next day in the hospital she crashed. I got ushered out of the room as a code blue team filled the room. She survived. But. A pulmonologist whom I did not know counseled me, in the kindest way, “I would call her people.” I did.
They came. Kate moved to the 10th floor, intermediate between normal hospital care and the ICU. Her last room.
Kate’s breathing became more labored. She required more attention from respiratory therapists. Occasional hallucinations. Fear of being nuts.
After 11 days, Kate’s resolve finally broke. I want to die. How do you feel about that? I hate it, but it’s the right decision for you. She died that night.
I had to come back to the hospital to see her corpse. It scared me in a deep way that I only understood this week. Seeing Kate dead thrust me back fifty-seven years.
An elevator ride with my stroke crippled and bent mother to her final surgery. Her strangled voice. Her last word to me: Son.