The Longest Hallway

“How am I going to do this?” I wondered as I walked down the longest hall I had ever walked, “What am I going to say?”  Those were the thoughts going through my mind last year as I was wondering how to break the news to my dad that his wife of 64 years had passed away.  Those same thoughts crossed my mind the past few days when I was thinking about writing this post.

My mom died on January 19, 2017, at 10:27 am at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital in the presence of my sister Karen and my brother-in-law Brian.  She was 83 years old and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for a few years, but she died from a stroke.  It has almost been a year now.  Sometimes it seems like it just happened.  Other times it doesn’t, because she had been disappearing for a few years before her death.

One of the last outings I had with my parents was a visit to Hathaway on May 23, 2015. It was just a few months before they moved into assisted living.

We moved my parents into assisted living in August of 2015.  They had been barely holding their own living in the family home in Jennings.  They didn’t want to leave, but things were getting unmanageable.  Broken bones, failing memory, and limited movement continued to worsen.  But when Mom started taking medicine at any time because she had forgotten that she had already taken the daily dosage, Daddy knew that it was getting to be more than he could manage.  He was losing sensations in his hands and feet, so he was starting to need assistance as well.  They were in their 80s after all.

So they moved into Brookdale in Lake Charles in a nice little apartment.  Karen and Brian brought them to church with them on Sundays and afterward they would all have lunch at their home.  My dad can be a particular eater and is not reluctant to let you know how things could be better.   As Mom would say, Karen and Brian earned a lot of “brownie points” with all the help they provided Mom and Dad.

The beginning of the end was in October of 2016.  Mama fell and broke her hip (she had broken the other one a few years before) and shoulder somehow and she had to be taken to the hospital.  My brother Al flew down to help out.  When he and Daddy were getting ready to go to the hospital, Daddy fell.  It wasn’t so much that he broke anything, it was that he didn’t have the strength to keep from falling.

So when Mom was having surgery to repair her hip and shoulder, Dad was being admitted to see what was going on with his health.  We were all a bit baffled about what was going on.  He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver.  Cirrhosis of the liver?  He never drank at all his whole life!  We were doubtful of this diagnosis at first, but his condition never really improved much.  He slept a lot and there was minimal interaction with us when we visited.

He was getting much worse in January and on the 18th I got a call from Karen.  She said that Hospice was telling her that Daddy would probably be dying sometime soon.  A sobering call, to say the least.  We all could see it happening.  The grandkids had all come to say their goodbyes and reminisce about times with Grammy and Pappy.  So the call was not a complete shock.

The more shocking call was the one I got later that night.  Actually it was at 2 o’clock on the morning of the 19th.  Mama had fallen and hit her head and the doctors said it could be a “terminal event.”  It seemed like everything that was happening with them could be considered terminal events.  She had fallen before, and when you went to see her she would smile and say, “Hey!”  with a smile as if nothing had happened.  So I went back to sleep.

The news the next morning was that there was no improvement.  It looked like she had had a stroke and fallen as a result.  I decided to go to Lake Charles and thought about letting Karen know I was coming, but to make sure she didn’t let mom “wait” for me.  Not that she would or could, but you hear about people doing this.  I wouldn’t want her to suffer any longer.  She had said she was ready to go.  It was a moot point, because I got notification that she had passed away.  So Chuck and I went to Lake Charles.  Thankfully, Chuck drove.

I was assuming that the hospital called the funeral home and that they would have removed ‘the body’ before we got there.  I talked to Brian and he informed me that the hospital had not called the funeral home.  He asked if I wanted them to wait until I had a chance to visit her.  Of course I wanted them to wait.  I shouldn’t say ‘of course,’ because I remember distinctly that Mama did not want to go see her father’s body after he had died.  He had donated his body to science, so she wouldn’t have a chance to see him at a funeral.  I thought she might want to, but she didn’t.  So I didn’t go see him at the time, even though I wanted to.

So we went to say our goodbyes to Mama in room 208 at Memorial.  I won’t tell you everything about the visit.  Some things were disturbing.  Others were not.  I kept expecting her to breathe.  She didn’t.  It was sad.  It was a relief. Something funny happened.  As we were walking out of the room, I pulled her toe and said, “Bye, Mom.”

We then went downstairs to the emergency room to check on Karen.  She had fallen as she was leaving the hospital room and cut her eyebrow.  They were waiting for her blood pressure to stabilize.  She had been through a lot with everything happening with my parents.  We all decided it was best that she go home and get some rest.  That left me with the task of informing my dad that Mom had died.

That was not something I had ever considered when dealing with my parents’ failing health.  If I ever thought much about it, I would think that if one of them died first, the other one would have been with them when it happened.  With my dad being on his ‘death bed’ and receiving the last rites that morning, he was in no condition to go see what was going on with his wife.  Karen was in need of rest and Jamie wouldn’t get there until later, so it was up to me.

Did I say that it was a long hall?  It really wasn’t.  It just seemed really long at the time.  I stopped at one point because I got choked up.  How was I going to do this?  But I had to do it.  He needed to know and it had to be one of us.  And by that I mean one of his kids.  I have a tendency to speak in the plural when talking about my childhood.  “We played ghost in the graveyard.”  “We ran away from Tez.”  You know, the usual childhood stuff.  So one of us was going to do it and I was there.

I finally made my way into the room and went to his side.  He knew that something was wrong because he had been there when they took her from their room.  I think he was waiting to hear the news, maybe hoping for a “Hey” and a smile as if nothing had happened.  Not this time.  When his eyes locked on mine, I broke down.  I just started crying and so did he.  I think he knew at that point that things were not the same.

I didn’t say anything at first, we just cried together as he held my hands.  I was surprised at how strong his grip was at the time.  He had seemed so weak previously.  He then asked a few questions about what had happened.  I told him that she had had a stroke and had died.  She was no longer suffering and he didn’t need to worry about her any longer.  That is when the wailing and moaning began.  It was heartbreaking.

He and my mom had been happily married for 64 years.  How does someone ever deal with something like that?  Weeping and saying, “I’m going to miss her,” was just the beginning of it.  He did settle down after a while.  He was worn out.  When Jamie and Allen came in later, he went through the same thing with Jamie.  It was heartrendingly touching.  Though he did have her in somewhat of a headlock.  Jamie was surprised by his strength too.  She teasingly reprimanded him by saying, “What do you think this is?  Your birthday or something?”  It was a phrase he always used for our birthday if we were saying or doing something questionable.  It was the last time I heard him laugh.

A little later in the visit, I heard him say, “I’m finished.”  It was the last thing I heard him say.  He died five days later.