The End

We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. --- Joseph Campbell

The beginning of the end started the day we got to hospice. Al wanted to go home, but was there ever really a choice? He was finishing his fifth stay in the hospital in four months with recurring pneumonia. He wasn't well enough to go home even if he thought he was. The cancer was more determined to have the last say. It had tried to kill him several times already but he was kept alive by modern medicine and a faith that was stronger than anything I had ever seen before.

He actually had an appetite the day we were leaving the hospital and moving to hospice, but I knew the infection was already in his body. He requested frozen yogurt and while he ate it, I could already hear the gurgle in his chest. This usually happened by the fourth or fifth day out, but this time it was happening even before he was discharged. The doctor came to visit and I asked him to listen to Al's lungs. Dr. S pulled out his stethoscope, put it to Al's chest and said, "It sounds trashy in there." But just like me, the doctor knew what was happening. The end of the fight was near.

Al continued to eat the yogurt. That was the last time he actually craved a food, if you can call yogurt a food. I realize now that it was the steroids making him hungry. I now call steroids the "fake" pills because everything you feel at the time you are on them is all fake. You are not really hungry, happy or full of energy. It just appears you are.
The discussion of where we should go next had been going on for weeks. There was no question that this time, the answer had to be different. The doctor asked what our decision was and I said hospice, then home. Dr. S looked at me, nodded his head and said he would go start on the paperwork so we could get out of there. As the doctor was walking out, Al would speak his last words to him. He said, "Hey Doc, I think if you get me in a swimming pool, the rehab would work better." Still fighting and believing for a miracle.

It was a relief to be at hospice. The nurses at hospice are the most generous, caring and thoughtful people I had ever been around. Not only did they meticulously take care of Al, but they also began to take care of me. What we thought would be a short stay there (5 days) and then home began. The steroids were working, Al felt great, probably the best he had in months. I rolled out the sleeper chair next to him, held his hand and listened to him talk about the next step. I began to believe that he would get better, his enthusiasm was contagious and his spirit uplifting. Yes, we can still beat this.

The next day I asked the nurse to read me the doctor's comments in the chart. "Poor prognosis, less than six months" read the nurse. I felt that I had been hit in the chest. It was the first time that the phrase had been officially spoken. I asked her to repeat it and she just looked at me and hugged me. I didn't tell Al. How could I? And yet, I suspected that he already knew, but I was not going to be the one to dimmer his hope.

The decline started the very next day. The nurse told me he was "actively dying."  "What does that mean?" I asked. She said that he probably had only a few more days. She handed me a booklet to read. She was right, the signs started to appear on his body. How can we suddenly go from six months to a few days? And still, I didn't tell him. I held his band, talked to him and rarely left his side. A few more days followed with visitors in and out. Was it fair that they knew, but he didn't?

The cancer was causing the infection raging through his body. Is this what they mean when they say that it was the "complications" from cancer and not the cancer that actually kills someone? And still, I slept next to him and held his hand while he slipped deeper and deeper away from me.

I was alone with him the last night. I was tired and wanted to sleep, but I knew the end was near. He had already slipped into a coma. I lifted his head to turn his pillow and as my hand cradled his neck, I cried out in alarm. I had never felt such heat. I asked the nurses to do something. They looked at me as if to say, it doesn't matter, but it did to me. Ice packs were applied to his body to try to reduce the fever. Of course it didn't work, but in my mind I felt better for doing it. After that, I sat beside him all night and listed to the sounds coming from his chest. Was he suffering? I don't think so. Could he hear me? Perhaps. And so I told him he was going to heaven, but I'm sure he was already there.

The actual death happened very suddenly with no drama. His breathing changed and with two long breaths, he was gone. The silence was profound and I remember thinking, it's just me now.

One year later and the flood of memories of Al's last 8 days come flooding back. For many months I felt guilty that we didn't have an elaborate "good-bye" scene. Isn't that how the movies depict how the end should be? But, I realize now that there is no correct way to say goodbye. For us, there was no reason to talk about it...the end that is. Volumes were said by not saying it.

Valentine's Day

"The Love you two shared can only be surmounted by Al's love for the Lord."
Scott Willeford, Al's nephew

Al was not what you would call a "romantic" guy. By this I mean, he did not go overboard with flowers, candy or stuffed animals. Don't get me wrong, he told me he loved me all the time, but when it came to surprises, he was not your guy.

When we first started dating, he sent me a bouquet of flowers. The card read, "From a Known Secret Admirer". I still have that card in my wallet. If my memory serves me correctly, he sent me flowers one other time and that was the first Valentine's Day we were together. Attached to the flowers was a stuffed teddy bear that said, "I Love You" when you pressed its paw. As the years went by the flowers and stuffed animals stopped. Often, we would be at HEB and I would comment on how beautiful the flowers were. He would say, "Go pick out some for you, but not the real expensive ones". Doesn't that sound more like him?

One thing that didn't stop and something I could always count on was a card that he handpicked himself along with a special note he would write inside each one. I would normally get two cards; a humorous one and a very serious one. I now have a stack of cards with his words in his handwriting that I will cherish forever.

He knew that I didn't care if he failed to buy flowers, candy or even bling, but if he forgot the card, he was in major trouble. I'll never forget one birthday when he failed to buy a card, so sitting on top of my desk that morning was his handwritten letter on white notebook paper. His explanation for the lack of a card...."Now I can spend $4.95 extra on dinner for you". I started laughing and he felt that my acceptance of the notebook paper meant he never had to buy me another card, and he didn't. But I'm glad, because his notes just meant that much more.

Last Valentine's Day was so against everything Al had done in the past. We (he) was in the hospital and he secretly asked Bridget to go to PF Chang's and buy us dinner. He also asked her to buy orange roses for me. Bridget snuck in, set a romantic table with candles (battery operated), tablecloth and rose petals. Dinner was set out and the two of us enjoyed our last Valentine's together. It was beautiful and so unexpected. In no way did we know that in 11 days, Al would be gone.

Am I sad to be alone this Valentine's Day? No, to me it's just another day. A more significant date is in less than two weeks.

                                                        Valentine's Day, 2011