I reached for the door and paused.This is the door of finality.This wife's husband has now left home forever on a gurney in a velour bag with a quilt laid on top. I will never return here again. My work is done.
I entered by another door. I rang the bell and paused. The sister opened the door, "Come this way." I walked through the country kitchen to the living room. The classic scene. Dining room table pushed aside. Room made for the hospital bed. Supplies heaped on the no longer used bedside commode.
The widow, with eyes downcast said that he passed around 3AM. I acknowledged with a solemn look of understanding. I walked near to the head of the bed and looked at his face. Mouth flaccidly open. I reached out in a gesture of comfort touching his arm. I spoke to his wife. " I am going to confirm what we already know." She returned my solemn glance.
In that sacred moment when I place the head of the cold stethoscope on the chest, death is pronounced as if it is a discrete moment in time. When did death first enter? Perhaps when he couldn't remember how to get home from the local hardware store. The one he has frequented since he was a young man. Or maybe when he couldn't remember his wife's name. Or how to dress or eat any longer. In this home, death came slowly over weeks and months and years. It culminated as the door opened and the gurney went through.
Tears filled her eyes and I waited with her in silence. She stepped across the threshold and watched. I remained present, moved by her devotion. Stepping back into the house she reached for the door and closed it. My heart paused. We moved through the final motions: discarding narcotics, assuring her that equipment would be removed, her regular nurse and the doctor would be notified. I offered my sympathies again. The sister kept me for a moment to tell the story in her words. I gathered my bag and computer and left through the door I had come in by.
Now I reached for the door and pulled it closed. I heard it latch and wondered what death is like after we leave.
This piece captures the moment you experienced with vivid images to draw me in, but also I think you created a surreal detachment with the opening and closing of the doors and the various pauses. I also was taken by the cold stethoscope rather than stating the obvious about the cold body. and the question I am left with remains, even though the door has been closed. Your work and writings are sacred.
ReplyDeletebeautiful and tragic piece, Gillian. to stand with others at the sacred moment between life and death is a sacred vocation - to witness the pain of transformation from wife to widow, child to orphan, parent to childless, like closing a door and not re-entering it again.
ReplyDelete