We drive back to the hotel, and I stop at the front desk. “I was in room 214 with my husband. I had you call an ambulance earlier, but he died. Would it be possible to get another room, please? And I’ll need to stay another night.”
The young women behind the desk are shocked by my matter-of-factness, and tears of compassion fill their widening eyes. They come out from behind the counter to hug me. “I’m so sorry.” This jump starts my own emotions, and I start shaking again. There are tears again.
The hotel is full. It’s family weekend in the college town, but as soon as someone checks out, they’ll get us a new room.
We have to go back in there.
The room is in disarray with plastic from packages EMTs tore open. Clothes are strewn about. The covers are utterly disheveled, and the bed is damp.
Why is the bed wet? Did he wet the bed? Night sweats? Did the EMT’s . . . No. . . . It is just yet another mystery. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I go to the bathroom. My make-up is all out. Surely I didn’t put on make-up before I went to the hospital, did I? No, I’m pale as a sheet and look ten years older than I did before I went to bed. I brush my teeth to get the taste of death out of my mouth. It was the first of at least six brushings that day.
I have to think, but I can’t seem to get my brain functioning. I need a shower. My hair’s a mess. I can’t go to breakfast with Barbara's friends on parents’ weekend looking like this. We can still go to the ballgame. That’s what I came to do—have fun with my daughter on parents’ weekend in this wonderful little Midwestern town on a crisp fall day.
Only I’m so tired. Maybe if I just lie down, I’ll go back to sleep and wake up from this bad dream. Or I’ll never get up. Either way, it will all be fine.
Barb is texting her friends that we won’t be at brunch as planned with them and their parents. "Don’t call," she texts. "I'll explain later." I wonder if she'll explain it to me, too.
I look at her, really look. She’s not doing well, either. For the next hours, it is as though we are ballroom dancing a long, awful slow waltz, with each of us taking turns holding the other up. Whenever one of us stumbles, the other takes over.
“Let me get you some tea,” I say.
“Go take a shower, Mom.”
A shower, yes. A time I remember my baptism and give thanks as the cleansing water washes all away. But now my husband’s baptism is now complete in death. I crumple into the tub, wrapping my arms around my fetal position, and cry beneath the shower of tears.
After awhile I get up—a pattern I repeat for several weeks: crumple and cry . . . and then get up and go on.
The young women behind the desk are shocked by my matter-of-factness, and tears of compassion fill their widening eyes. They come out from behind the counter to hug me. “I’m so sorry.” This jump starts my own emotions, and I start shaking again. There are tears again.
The hotel is full. It’s family weekend in the college town, but as soon as someone checks out, they’ll get us a new room.
We have to go back in there.
The room is in disarray with plastic from packages EMTs tore open. Clothes are strewn about. The covers are utterly disheveled, and the bed is damp.
Why is the bed wet? Did he wet the bed? Night sweats? Did the EMT’s . . . No. . . . It is just yet another mystery. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I go to the bathroom. My make-up is all out. Surely I didn’t put on make-up before I went to the hospital, did I? No, I’m pale as a sheet and look ten years older than I did before I went to bed. I brush my teeth to get the taste of death out of my mouth. It was the first of at least six brushings that day.
I have to think, but I can’t seem to get my brain functioning. I need a shower. My hair’s a mess. I can’t go to breakfast with Barbara's friends on parents’ weekend looking like this. We can still go to the ballgame. That’s what I came to do—have fun with my daughter on parents’ weekend in this wonderful little Midwestern town on a crisp fall day.
Only I’m so tired. Maybe if I just lie down, I’ll go back to sleep and wake up from this bad dream. Or I’ll never get up. Either way, it will all be fine.
Barb is texting her friends that we won’t be at brunch as planned with them and their parents. "Don’t call," she texts. "I'll explain later." I wonder if she'll explain it to me, too.
I look at her, really look. She’s not doing well, either. For the next hours, it is as though we are ballroom dancing a long, awful slow waltz, with each of us taking turns holding the other up. Whenever one of us stumbles, the other takes over.
“Let me get you some tea,” I say.
“Go take a shower, Mom.”
A shower, yes. A time I remember my baptism and give thanks as the cleansing water washes all away. But now my husband’s baptism is now complete in death. I crumple into the tub, wrapping my arms around my fetal position, and cry beneath the shower of tears.
After awhile I get up—a pattern I repeat for several weeks: crumple and cry . . . and then get up and go on.
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