“Now, she belongs to the ages…”

It’s been a day since she died. I knew it was coming, but I thought we had more time together. And it turns out she died because several someones screwed up. And I can’t get satisfaction because they’ll collectively say “it was meant to be,” “there was no saving her,” or some other justification for their collective ineptitude.

I spent yesterday morning doing mundane but necessary things, laundry, paying a few bills, and tidying a bit of the house. I knew there would be others visiting (one made it, the other had a conflicting commitment), and I would have time to myself with her in the afternoon. So I did 3 loads of laundry, folded and put them away, did my other chores, and even talked to the facility’s business manager about finances and insurance. Not going to go into the details of that fiasco. In the end, it didn’t matter, but nobody knew that at the time.

About 2:30, we drove to the facility, chatting on the way. Went up to her room at 3 and was greeted by S in bed, lying on her back and making a gurgling noise that she had never made before. We were able to make eye contact and communicate as best we could, since she was nonverbal at this point and unable to give us an exact idea of what was going on in her head. We talked to some of the staff and were informed that she had started making gurgling noises sometime in the morning, due to difficulty swallowing, so saliva was gathering at the back of her throat. They were trying to keep her from aspirating, so her head was elevated slightly to ward that off. She’d been medicated with morphine for the past 4 days; trying to keep her comfortable was the plan, we’d abandoned the road to chemotherapy idea, because the cancer was already too advanced, she wasn’t eating or drinking much, so her kidneys were shutting down as well. It was a matter of time. We just didn’t know how much, or how little. I’d already decided in my head I wasn’t going to work the next day; if I had to spend the night to be with her, that’s what I was going to do. As it turned out, I didn’t have to.

Around 4 pm, she started making gestures with her hands, which we took to mean that she was having a higher level of pain. We called for the nurse and were informed that she was on a 4-hour regimen of morphine, and it was being administered orally. Her last dose was at 1 pm, and her next wasn’t due for another hour. She evaluated S’s condition and determined that S needed another dose. It was at this point that everything went south. Once the dose was administered, S began making louder gurgling noises, indicating she couldn’t swallow the medicine and needed help. At this point, the staff either collectively lost their minds or couldn’t figure out what to do. They almost as a team left the room and congregated in the hallway, leaving my friend and me to try to assist. One of the aides came in and lifted the head of the bed up, but that just made things worse….

S started to choke, and her eyes got wide, and she looked at me, and I saw fear. She was afraid, and I couldn’t stop what was happening. I yelled HEY!! very loudly, and that brought everyone back in the room, but S’s hands were already turning blue, and she just slumped in the bed. At that point, the unit manager muscled me out of the room, and we had a quick conversation at the doorway while the 2 nurses fiddled with a suction machine, but I knew it was already too late. They weren’t going to bring her back. By the time I got back, the nurse practitioner was already saying there was no pulse, and she looked at her watch and the clock on the wall. It said 4:15 pm. She was gone.

The next 30 minutes were filled with platitudes from the staff; naturally, no one was saying what we all knew had happened. The wheels of the death bureaucracy began. The funeral home I had previously designated was called, and I received a phone call about 10 minutes later from the director, who said he was in his vehicle and would be there in about 15-20 minutes. During that interval, we packed up S’s things, collected her hearing aids, her phone, and anything else that was hers, leaving the medical supplies and toiletries that we didn’t have use for. I played some music on my phone for S, songs I knew she liked from when she would sit at her computer and play them, always singing off-key when she thought I wasn’t listening (the woman was completely tone-deaf, but she had certain genres she loved). Mack the Knife by Bobby Darrin was a favorite, so I blasted that for the length of the song while we waited. I hope the other residents in the adjoining rooms didn’t mind, but at that point, I didn’t much care. I was doing it for S, and that’s what mattered most. Also, during that time, I started to notify everyone I could think of that S had passed. Some responded immediately, others over the course of the evening. When I notified my work supervisor, I asked if he’d ruin the store manager’s day. He said it was already covered.

About 10 minutes later, the funeral director arrived, and we discussed several things. He expressed his condolences on S’s passing, which he’s obligated to do. We talked a little about inconsequential things, and then he, with several of the facility’s aides, lifted S off the bed and onto the gurney. When he zipped the bag shut with her inside, that gave me the air of finality. He asked if 1 pm today (Saturday) would be an acceptable time to meet about arrangements, and I said yes. It’s a weekend, and a holiday weekend at that. Sadly enough, I’ve been here before, only it was November 1989, Thanksgiving week, and it was my Mom on a gurney. Different time, different place, same result. Another holiday ruined. We took our time heading downstairs, knowing we were going home alone.

She’s gone, and it’s been a very surreal 6 1/2 weeks. It seemed like it was a lot longer than that from when I took her to the ER because she had been feeling poorly after her recovery from back surgery. 2 hospital stays, 2 surgeries, 3 stints in rehab, and one very early morning trip to Rochester for an oncology consult that proved to be for naught, except to inform us that it was going to be a very different 2026 than we’d planned on. Now I’m left with a lot to take care of and not much time to do it. Life insurance. Vehicle issues. My final duty to her is to ensure that she can rest for eternity. She made sure to plan ahead for me, but she just failed to mention the mountain of paperwork that’s in my way to make it happen.

February 26, 1950 – April 3, 2026 I thought we were going to have more time, my love.