This is the beginning of the last two weeks of Sally’s life. We had had a busy and ambitious end of the year, a party, traveling…twice out of state, all in the last three months of the year. Looking back now, knowing these trips and the cinco de novembre party were actually going to be her last excursions, it makes it even more incredible to me. Her strength to travel, to see people, to engage at the end reminds me of the poem by Rudyard Kipling, a specific line
“if you can force your heart, your nerve, your sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you but the will that says ‘hold on’."
The next chapters will include some texts to family and our support group and give folks a look inside what the last days were like. It’s emotional but it’s a story of great love and great loss and great pain and life. Please share if you think it’s valuable.
Chapter 11 – Gratitude Sits With Sadness
It’s been 16 days since Sally died.
Chapter 10 was written the day before we decided to go to the hospital. There was a different type of vibe to that decision. It was like death was near. And it was.
So, this is going to be the story of her last few days.
She was really in rough shape on Thursday and Friday, the deterioration of her body and her faculties had quickened, and even conversations became hard for her, which had almost never been the case in the past.
I wasn’t sure we could get her into the car to get to the hospital and she was nervous about the transition from the house to the car. We had a nurse present from Lamoille Home Health who helped us to get going and her just being there with us was helpful from a human, presence perspective.
I think back to all the times we packed up to go to the hospital over the last six years and especially over the last year. We had become pros. We had our hospital bag and the electric blanket. I haven’t processed a lot of the experiences of the past because I was so IN them…but looking back our bag had gone from two to one and from full to ¼ full…it was like everything was atrophying…getting ready to disappear…it was like everything was flowing in that direction.
All Sally wanted to do was sleep. It had been like this for some time, and I think it was death. It was death coming and she simply fought and fought and fought. She kept saying how tired she was and how it was a different kind of tired. She expressed that it was a kind of “tired” that scared her. I wondered how much she could take; I wondered if she could defeat death. Sometimes, with her, it seemed like she could. Like if she just fought hard enough, she simply wouldn’t die, she wouldn’t allow it. There were times I believed this; times I think she believed it too.
We arrived at the UVM Medical Center on January 6th 2023 and spent time in the ER in a private room as we usually did. This time was different, there were different tests, they were talking about infections, blood infections, lung infections. This was different talk, pneumonia…this was different. She didn’t want me to leave the room, this was different. I didn’t want to leave the room, this was different. But patterns are hard and our pattern of believing that she would come out of it had been reinforced by years of her coming out of it. And so I went to the cafeteria, my dad came, I came back. She wasn’t eating much but I got some yogurt and fruit into her and always the grape juice. Always the grape juice, full of crushed ice…it was the drink we lived on 12 years earlier as we stayed in a different part of this same hospital with our wonderous son in our arms, cocooned in the maternity ward, grape juice with crushed ice. And it remained. Grape juice and crushed ice.
Doctors in and out. Sally and I, not as much talking now. Just me sitting with her laying…but some talking. Some talk. After a few hours her room was ready and we began the ascent, once again, like so many times before; Sally always gracious and cracking jokes, great jokes always, honest, painful, sometimes understood by the staff transporting her and other times treated as out of place as they could sometimes be…but not to her. Never to her and not to me either.
And so back on Miller 5. They know us here by now, they know us well. It’s a horrible and gracious thing to have friends on Miller 5 and we had friends. Only those that have taken this journey know of how your norms are shattered when you make a friend on a Miller 5 and then, when you see them, you’re happy and then you remember why you’re seeing them and you’re still happy but now you’re afraid and sad as well.
The shattering continues as you pull into your room and realize, it’s nice. You realize it’s a relief. You realize you’re glad to be back there because there’s so much support and so much care and so much help…and then you remember why you’re there…and so I’ll simply say I felt glad to be there and I’m pretty sure Sally did to and that’s real. As real as her cancer. As real as her loss.
It was January 6th and we’re back on Miller 5. All we know is that Sally can’t seem to feel rested even though she’s sleeping most of the time and the doctors are throwing around words like infection and pneumonia. We engage our local support system, which feels tired but in no way ever shows it. This is like a complete explosion of all our life patterns and expectations. It’s been like this every day for the last eleven months and for a good part of the last six years. It’s been this way for everyone. Sally and I, we’ve reached the point of acceptance around the help and support we’ve gotten…and we carry a gratefulness in our hearts, next to the sadness.
Edited 3/17/24
Damon, this is an amazing journey you are describing - and some of us were a close part of the friendship and love expressed by you two; and we also tended to each other as a warm and caring team going through this. Such memories of her and her relationships with Miller 5 staff, many of whom were so good to be around, and some trying to match her humor. Thank you for writing about these times and the now times. It is gripping, sometimes joyous. I am sad for the loss of her physical - emotional presence, her incredible way of being funny about so many things. The sandwich .... an incredibly well loved sandwich....specifically an open faces turkey sandwich. The writing you are doing about this is a special gift to us. And the girl!