Joining the Sisterhood

Joining the Sisterhood

A heartbeat or the lack of one can change your life, forever.  It’s been three years and almost three months since it changed mine.  Larry (he was 78 years old) and I were in the ICU at Swedish Hospital.  He had been there for a day.  After his monthly chemo at the oncologist’s office, he had a problem with being cold – freezing, he said – to the point that the nurses brought out warm blankets.  The blankets helped some, but he was immediately transported to the ICU at Swedish.

When I arrived at the ICU, there was an argument going on with Larry at the center of it.  A nurse told me that he was refusing – very vocally  – to wear the oxygen mask, even though, at home, he slept with a CPAP mask on every night.  “His oxygen levels are too low,” she said.  I asked them to wait just a moment while I put down my things, and then, I turned on him.  I told him that he was not going to be mean to his caregivers – he was being mean to them.  I told him that they were following the doctor’s orders and both he and they would be in trouble if he continued to refuse to wear the mask.  “So,” I said, “you will put on this mask as you are being asked to do.”  He put on the mask.

I stayed as late  as I could, called my daughters to let them know he was in the ICU, and went home.  The next morning, I had a conversation with his attending who told me that part of the problem (in addition to his weakened immune system, the COPD, the pulmonary fibrosis) was that he was being attacked by sepsis.  She said he would not live much longer.  She cried, and I knew in my heart that Larry was not going home with me.  Again, I called our daughters, HKB in town and JRW rushing, with her family from their Wisconsin home, to tell them of the urgency.

For a while, there were no caregivers in the room; then, a nurse entered and started doing something with the machines.  She told me I should come immediately to the bed – I’d been sitting in the corner out of the way.  I followed her instructions.  Larry was breathing but seemed asleep.  I took his hand in mine and told him it would be okay for him to let go.  Both of his daughters were well situated financially; JRW’s husband is a man who loves both her and their daughters.  I was financially secure for the time.  And, then, his breathing stopped.  Just stopped.

From one moment to the next, he was gone.  And, I had joined the largest organization in the world – widowhood.  A truly strange feeling when in one moment you are a wife and in the next, you are not – you are a widow.

Both daughters, son-in-law, and grands arrived later that day.  Each one had time alone with their dad and grandpapa.  There were lots of tears.

October 3 would have been our sixty-third wedding anniversary.  Our marriage lasted for almost sixty years, before sepsis overpowered his weakened immune system.

Larry had opted for cremation, and both daughters and I went to the facility where the cremation would happen.  When we talked with a representative at the office, we all decided to have some of his ashes preserved in paperweights.

When the rest of the ashes arrived by mail, I took them to Lookout Mountain one evening with a good friend.  At Colorow Park, we gave him to the wind to fly over the metro area.

Be safe and be well.

The Cranky Crone

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