It will happen soon now. He's stopped moving his legs around
and kicking off the sheets. Now it's just his feet that shift a bit from time
to time, or he moves his claw-like hands up and down his chest. His hands
didn't used to be claw-like. When did that happen?
When I cry the pain is visceral. Any thought of him can
bring it on. Tears well, my eyes clench closed, my head turns down and to the
left, and then it's like being electrocuted. I can feel the charge shoot from
behind my collar bone and down my left arm. It passes through the inside of my
elbow and then goes to my wrist, where it radiates in pulses from the pad of
flesh behind at the base of my thumb.
"You're wonderful," our old friend M said to me today.
He's a good friend of my parents, and also a former minister, so I suppose he's
used to visiting the bedsides of the dying - it would have been part of his
job. He came and sat with my mom and I for about half an hour and we talked
about memories of my dad, and Bermuda, where M was born, and Cuba, where I
have just been.
When M hugged me goodbye he said "You're wonderful."
He pulled back to look in my eyes. "Such great caring. Where did you learn
that?" I looked at my dad and mom and said "I had good teachers, I
guess." It was the thing to say. But I'm not sure I knew this was in me: the patient caregiver I've become in the last few days. It's not
something I'm sure I could replicate. Perhaps there's a bit I learned
from Cuba, actually. This acceptance of life's tragedies and making the best of
what there is.
After M left, I turned the music back on. We're playing
classical music for him. My mother brought in a bunch of CDs that he liked.
Right now it's Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Before that it was Schubert. So far my
favourite is the Baroque Harp - it seems to hit the right gentle, peaceful
note.
How much longer? Dying isn't easy, people keep telling me. I
guess the timing is all up to him now. Which piece will he choose as the
soundtrack for his transition to whatever comes next?
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