Clean, Fresh Landing

 
We're moving. 
September 16 the packers come.
September 17 they take it all and move it to our new digs.
I've been clearing out,
getting rid of stuff,
And
bumping into him.

On Thursday, the kids and I emptied out his closet.
He had his own closet.
It was such a tiny thing for such a big man. (6'6")
At four months, I got rid of all the clothes of his that
I didn't like
plus
the ones on his side of the dresser.
In death, I rejoiced in the small pleasure of having extra space.

But the clothes I loved,
the clothes that meant something to me,
the ones I kept thinking that he would walk back into the house wearing,
those I kept.
A suit, his navy jacket,
the many favored t-shirts,
7 pairs of his size 14 shoes -- the black Chuck Taylors, the Kenneth Coles and the LL Bean slippers.
His smelly red cycling jacket,
his UVA cap and the shirt and tie my grandmother bought for him.
I kept them all,
trusting that "they" would be right,
I would know when it was time to shed his belongings.

"Tonight," I said to the kids,
"Tonigh we need to go through Daddy's clothes. You can each pick out a few pieces that I will put away for you but the rest will go to the Los Angeles Men's shelter downtown."

Just before we started, I warned "This may bring up a lot of feelings.  That's a good thing.  If you feel sad, it's good. If you don't, it's good.  Just remember, the grief will not hurt you permanently. I know you know this but I want to remind you that it will feel like the world is ending but it's not.  They are just feelings.  All feelings pass."  I used my most gently mom voice.

Then we go to work.
The result is his closet now looks like this.

A few days before, I was squatting in front of the black credenza by the front door. 
I peered in to see what was on the shelf.
And there it was.
His medical notebook.
The second notebook that detailed all his medical procedures,
drug cards with their omimous side effect warnings
everything is there except...
the fact that he was dying.

I go through the notebook, remembering names like adriamycin and neutrapenic. I find the tickets from the blood drive held at his school.  When I go into Cedars blood donation center a week after the drive, to collect those tickets, the head of the center stops me. "Who is Art Nagle?" My husband I said.  "Well he is one hell of man. In my 15 years of doing blood drives I have never seen such an outpouring of love. He's touched many people."

I'm holding those tickets in my hand now and smiling, remembering that in a way she saw more of him than I did.

Behind the tickets is a piece of paper.
It has his handwriting on it.
It is a list of all his symptoms before
we knew it was cancer.



















I stare at the list
angry at our stupidity.
"Honey, just write down all your symptoms.  It'll be easier than trying to remember it."  I told him.
The list was from the second time he had cancer. I know this because he wrote "loose stools." A stoic man from Maine would never write "loose stools"  had he not already understood that in illness, your body is not yours.

I can't take my eyes off the list.
I read it over and over and over again.

As I lay it down in the keep pile,  I want to smack myself, to punch myself in the face for being so fucking stupid, for not recognizing the signs of the cancer ... again.  For not believing that lightening can strike twice. 

Like it would have helped.

Nothing helps. He's gone.  I'm here.
Even in our new place, I see that death has taken away my ability for a
clean,
fresh
landing.

There is no such thing.

Take It All

We are all at a standstill. You and me.

You poised to help, not knowing what to do.

Me, on the other side, wanting help, not knowing what to ask for.

Art’s presence has been with me all day.

I just stood in my kitchen crying.

Pallas looking on, hugging me.

"This is so hard." I said

'I miss him too, Mommy." she said.

And I want dinner delivered tonight… food that I would feed them.

And I want my kids fed and washed and put to bed… the way I put them to bed.

And I want the bills paid…the way I pay them

And I want someone to take away his music. I want to hear nothing.

And I want someone to take away his clothes, his everything.

If I can get to the nothing, the longing will go away. The hope that, maybe this time, when I walk into our bedroom, he’ll be there bald and laughing, will disappear.

I want to erase all this.

It won’t hurt if it’s gone.

Fuck.

Whose Name?

Whose name

do I put

on the school forms for the kids

in the space

where it says...

In Case of Emergency?

---

The 11th day is 6.5 hours from being over.

I am not dressed. I did not do my hair. I have not put on my contact lenses.

I wear a pair of Uggs, sweatpants, a long john shirt and a fleece. The plumber will just have to deal with it.

I do not want visitors. I do not want to go out. I am sure that if I open his closet and smell him, I will stay in it until my back hurts or the kids come home.

I sat in the living room today, opening cards and crying. I napped and dreamt my daughter almost died.

I've lost all of his memories, his half of the kids. Our reactions to poopy diapers, temper tantrums, funny word orders. I don't remember them all. Now, part of my children's lives are gone. Part of who they were has just disappeared.

Those thoughts, comments, memories, all the things that I couldn't remember about our kids are gone. They went with him.

This is what they mean by lonely. I had no idea.

Grasping at Control

It hasn't been 48 hours yet. I want to change....

something; move the piano, cut my hair, paint the ceiling, rip everything off the shelves. Sell everything....today! Start over.

I want my outside world to relfect my inside turmoil. The calmness that is slipping away, the trepidation, the impending emptiness that slowly lowers its vail and the grief that I no longer have the strength to keep at bay.

It's all coming. There is nothing I can do and I am scared shitless to loose control.

---

It's been 10 days since he's died.

It's the physical manifestation of sorrow that leave me winded: the always present stomach ache, the feeling like I want to shred my skin, pull at it, take it all off. It's the heaviness of my voice, and how I can't get my eyes completely open.

Everything is so dull. When I laugh deeply I am surprised by its sound and depth and fullness. I am embarrassed by its bawdiness.

The ceiling of grief hovers closer, as do the sides of it, closing in. My mother left today, my in-laws leave Monday. I pick up Art's cremated remains on Tuesday. I am pretty sure that on Wednesday I will not be able to get out of bed.

Funny, even now I am "planning" for collapse.

"This contract is to set forth the terms of grieving. Grief can be had after the following conditions have been met:

• Weekly laundry is finished
• I have made an appointment with a grief counselor for me and the kids
• His remains have been picked up
• Meetings have been had with the Social Security office AND I have filed the proper paperwork with ....

If, and only if, these conditions have been met can Kim Hamer lay in bed, overcome. The time allowed for bed laying is -----. It shall last no more than --------."

God, even here, in this space truly between living and mourning I need control. It is the only thing I can hang on to.

The End Comes

April 12, 2009

Art is back in the hospital.

Friday was when it happened. Low white blood cells, he started a fever.

Today, Sunday, yes. That is the day today.

He has viral menengitis.

He's ... no words to describe. They are giving him support (drugs), helping it to leave his body.

It could take 24 hours.

It could take a week.

I would say I am scared, only, I .... I don't know what I feel.

I sleep here with him tonight. The kids scattered at friend's houses.

Family reinforcements arrive tomorrow.

I read to him.

I sang to him.

I held his hand.

Now I will sleep for him.

Hoping that when I wake up, I will find it was some kind of really mean joke he'd played on me.

Better that than this reality.

----

April 13

4:45 am

"Can someone come take his vitals please?" I ask.

I ask again, 15 minutes later after no one shows up.

When vitals are taken, his o2 level was 84.

Art lies in his bed, oblivious to the stress he’s causing, eyes open, lids red, the whites of his eyes, looking like a weird colored map of water, rivers painted red instead of blue. Not seeing or hearing a thing. Fingers swollen. Hands swollen, wrists too. Left arm in a constant tremor.

There was a flurry of activity. The nurse, the charge nurse then the doctor show up.
Dr. Taj, his name tag said was young, gave little eye contact, and was straight forward.

“Does he have code order?” he asked. He turns to me, to make eye contact for the first time. “Can we intubate him and give him chest compressions if we need to?”

A code order? I stammer.

“Intubate him (pause) if he codes (shutter). The kids need to say good-bye. We need to keep him here for the kids.” (long sigh)

Holy shit…it’s like I’d practiced these words before.

What’s happening?

Art's leaving.

He's done.

An Xray and an EKG are order.

Art has been sequestered to a negative pressure room. A series of two rooms an outer/hallway room and then his inner hospital room. Viral meningitis (which they think he has) is contagious especially to other immune suppressed patients (people who have low white blood cell counts) A negative pressure room, keeps the germs inside and filters them out.

I leave the room as the portable Xray tech does his job and wait in the outer hallway, I stand next to the EKG guy, waiting for his turn to hook my husband up. I cry.

I follow the EKG guy in, take pictures, and read the printout over his shoulder. He hands me the print out to sign when he’s done. He thinks I knew what I was reading.

I think “Ha…see, I could be a doctor.” I consider signing it but then decided against it. It would be more fun if Art were aware to witness this little ruse.

I think about the kids.

"Honey," I whisper in his ear, after the EKGguy is gone, before the doctor returns “You can go if you need to but… please wait, please wait to say good-bye to the kids.”

The guilt floods in.

I should have had the friend over to video Art leaving life messages to the kids. I should have visited on Saturday with the kids, even if they were sick or no matter how much of a break I needed. I should have, I should have, I should have….

And I realize like I've been hit, NOTHING is perfect. Death doesn’t happen like it does on tv.

Illness doesn’t happen like it does on tv. I knew that.

Sitting here typing with one hand, as my other is a swollen, clenched sweaty fist, I feel it.

This is not perfect. My life with Art is not perfect. It is ending, undone, incomplete, not part of the plan.

We are unfinished.

---

Monday, April 13, 2009

Daytime

our oldest says good-bye

They told me to bring the kids in. They told me to bring the kids in. It’s over and I, I, I just ….

I
feel
nothing.

The hardest part about this... No wait, the right now hardest part about this is watching them grieve. My heart is in shards, little sharp deadly pieces.

Doctors and then Dr. Lill, Art’s doctor, comes in. He used the word

die.

Finally SOMEONE used that word!

Death, even in a hospital is whispered, in euphemisms – passed, gone, left, not there. None of those words speaks the truth. My husband is going to die.

Soon.

And when he does, he will be DEAD. Period.

No euphemizing that!

There will be no one to check my spelling. No one to wait for my call, saying I’m on my way home.

Oh God, I don’t want to be one of those single mothers whose kids are out of control!

There is a Sarah McGloughlin song. Only lyrics I can remember are

Hold on
Hold on to yourself
This is gonna hurt like hell

She’s right. And I know I don’t know what I’m doing.

I stand at this place, knowing I must fall into the gorge. I’ll survive, it’s just right now, I don’t want to go.

I just want to vomit.

----

April 15, 2009

Steve Odefy gave his childhood friend, my husband, his last shave. It was the first time he had ever shaved another man. He did it with a kind of grace and tenderness that made all of us in the room silent.

I am confused. Family and friends come in and out of the room. I'm tired. I don't know what day it is. I don't care. I like this world. It's small and simple. There is a cot for me to sleep on, which I don't use. There is food in the cafeteria for me to buy, which I don't eat. There are people I call and tell. "He's going." I say. And then they are confused.

And there are moments of 50/50 clarity. The moment I meet his parents at the hospital door, they just having arrived from the east coast, weary and frightened. Their oldest son is dying. "I'm so sorry" I sobbed. The moment when we all stood around the bed and repeated the 23rd Psam. The smell of his breath, sickly sweet as his body begins to shut down. The chill of his hands.

I want to photograph all of it. It's the only way l will ever believe that this is really happening.

Because, really, this can't be happening. It just can't.

---

April 16, 2009

Art left this world early this morning.

I watched him take his last breath. I watched his lungs and heart stop. His lungs, the ones with all the cancer in them were the last to give up. Even his heart quit before them. They were amazing lungs.

He changed color and I cried. I was so relieved. I was afraid he would look in death as he did in life. It would have made leaving him hard.

His sister and childhood friend where there as well. I washed his body afterwards.

I am full of relief. Finally, this is over. It's all over. A door has been shut, another one has opened. No more half open, one big toe in, the rest of the body out, door not really closed stuff.

I can move now. Life is not in limbo. It's gone.