sometimes you're the 7. sometimes you are the 11. sometimes you are snake-eyes.
sometimes you are the lightning. sometimes you are the bottle.
sometimes you are the comforted. sometimes you are the comforter.
sometimes you cry. sometimes you laugh.
sometimes you forget. sometimes you remember.
sometimes you are salty. sometimes you are sweet.
all the time, you are human. all the time, you are alive.
that's been my lesson this week, every day, every minute. it's being written on my heart. and while i ponder these treasures, as i'm imagining new mothers pondering their new children, i find myself grateful, in a bittersweet kind of way.
i knew when i took this job that i was saying yes to hospital visits, funeral receptions, lots of phone conversations, lots of HEB cards given out to hungry people. i knew at some point, i would be saying yes to being with someone while they were dying. i figured that moment would come some place far in the future, when i had accumulated more wisdom, shed some more of my own bagage, become more mature, had steeled myself for the experience. silly me. silly, hopelessly optimistic, naive me. you can imagine how shocked i was to be at the foot of someone's bed on monday night as they left this side of things for whatever lays on the other side.
i knew what i was walking into about 10 minutes before i walked into it. i'm sure i was as suprised about this man dying as he was, as his family was, as my boss and our co-worker and our bible study leader were. life turns on a dime, and by the time we got to bob's room, the dime was thin and overspent. if you want to stop reading now, you can. i just need to say what i saw "out loud", and as much as i love my journal, this story doesn't fit there. i can't explain why, it just doesn't.
so i got to the room before my co-workers did. bob's wife was there, her friend, and their youngest son were there, too. as i got off the elevator, i had the morbid recollection that i was going to see someone's father die in almost the same outfit i wore the night my own father died--long sleeve blue shirt, gray shorts (even my work outs this week have seemed to co-incide with drama...), favorite socks, and tennis shoes. odd synchronicity to realize while stepping off an elevator, going to do "work" that you know will end with a bizzare mix of joy, pain, tears, and sometimes laughter. i felt like i was walking toward being able to finish something, to tie something off that had been tattered for a long time. and, in a way, i was.
hospitals are so clean, so pristine, so important, fussy, and technical. bob was hooked up to all kinds of machines telling us how fast his heart was beating, how many times per minute he breathed, blood oxygen level, the whole schmear. it was easy to quantify his life by watching those lines jump up and down and wind their way across a computer screen that probably cost more than a house payment. i found myself getting sucked into watching the screen, because it was safe, detached, sterile. the lines weren't bob, nor were the beeps, the dips in the waves, the alarms that started to ring closer and closer together. watching the screen let me pretend that maybe this wasn't happening after all.
death is such a private thing. and i had only known bob since a little before christmas, when he'd first gotten sick. we laughed a lot, and joked. monday night was only the second time i'd ever met his wife, who works outside the home. i'd go see bob every week, hoping to find him better. and better never really turned into well. it's the little things that get you--like the funky little infections or wet lungs. being with bob and his family felt perfectly natural and perfectly odd, at the same time. i was basically a stranger to them, watching them during this intimate time. but it all seemed like it was supposed to be happening this way, so i tried not to think about what was going to happen when bob actually made his big exit--was someone going to totally freak out (and dear sweet God, don't let me be the one to freak out, because i've never done this before, not even when i was supposed to because i just couldn't make myself...), was it going to be peaceful, was it going to be awful?
bob's son started telling a story about himself and his brother, and the go cart that bob made for them, at the prompting of our bible study leader. and bob opened his eyes to listen. and then, he really started to die. and no one was talking to him. i had a hard time with that. this was bob's big finish. someone needed to tell him it was ok, that he was doing a good job, not to be afraid, and that we were so proud of him. so i did. small voice at first, and louder toward the end. i remember my mother telling me that she and my grandparents and godparents did that for my dad as he was dying. i remembered. and i didn't flinch a bit. and it felt good, like in that very thin place, that place where what is beyond and what is present were colliding, i could do this thing for someone else's father that had been done for mine. and then bob was done, and it wasn't really bob in the bed, anymore. and we were relieved, and sad, and all had a laundry list of tasks to being taking care of. we said some prayers, hugged each other, and all went home. i slept like a baby.
i know that bob's death is the first one in this job, and will not be the last. and that's ok. i'm sad i only knew him when he was sick, but i am so glad that i got to know him at all. he was funny and kind, with an earnest and open face that you rarely see these days. i'm glad i got to learn with him, and that his last moments were spent teaching all of us in that room something about letting go with dignity and purpose.
digging out of this week will be hard, in some ways. in other ways, i'm already out. there are boxes to unpack, groceries to buy, carpets to vaccum, address books to update, bills to pay, and all those things that go along with being alive and being adult. but tuesday and today, the world has been in technicolor for me, water has been sweeter, words have been more gentle, food has had amazing flavor, and covnversations have been less trying. it is an amazing thing to be alive. and i am grateful and amazed.
mil besos--rmg
