Personal Journal

Surfacing Memories

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn

Tonight I was painting miniatures.
Out of nowhere, my memory re-opened those couple of days prior to Jean being admitted to hospice.
Those were the days my hope died.

I think I wrote about that Saturday night, after the incident where Jean had her last real moment with me while I was trying to help her to the commode. Later that night, or maybe it was the next day, I don't really have any way of knowing, she started to have a gurgling sound when she was breathing. I got the nurses and they decided it was serious, so they called a respiratory therapist up to suck the shit out of her throat.

That was awful, because when he started, first he got it worse, and Jean's body started to suffocate while he was trying to clear the blockage. That was one of the most godawful moments of my life. I had to struggle to keep my composure, I just wanted to scream. Helplessness is not something you're used to being in life, I guess.

I think it was that night that they moved her down to ICU. She stayed in ICU a couple days, maybe. It was at least 36 hours.

I don't remember a lot of this, anymore. But I remember being in the ICU waiting facility with this average joe husband and wife, and they were there for their mother, who had had something fairly serious happen to her. I don't recall. She was pulling through, though, I recall that, because I remember that Jean was not.

Somewhere in those many hours where the 3 of us... It was a Sunday night, I remember because me and the husband were watching the evening NFL game on ESPN.

At one point, I broke. The fear and the realization that it COULD be the end (I didn't learn that it was until Dr. Young said the word "Hospice" that Monday, I think it was). And there I was crying hysterically, and the wife came over and just held me.

I had forgotten that until tonight.

I remember when Jean was accepted into the hospice program. God how my mindset changed over those couple of days. I can't BELIEVE how thankful I was that Jean was coming home to die. But I was. How alien, to be thankful to bring your lover home to die...

I thought about going down to tell that couple, because I remembered seeing them when I was on my way down for whatever meal it was. And I walked down there and got to the last corner before the ICU waiting room, and I decided not to tell them. I don't remember why. I think I wanted to spare them from feeling sorry for me and for Jean. I remember thinking it was inappropriate.

And I let it go at that.

That memory of that couple and those hours had escaped me until tonight. I wasn't digging for things or anything, I was just painting miniatures, and bam! There it was.