In all her May-ness

I like that word tranche, which the world of structured finance has given us. At the service tomorrow, there will be different tranches of people who knew her. People from her corporate years, when she hired a "dress for success" consultant but then forced him to put more feminine touches on the business suits he made for her. People from her golden years on Brushy Creek in the Schluersburg Valley, who experienced her indefatigability. Her neighbors here on Hartzell Street, who knew the possibility she could see in the most forlorn object in a garage sale. The caregivers at Arden Courts, who knew her for what she gave back.

With the help of every tranche, we will be remembering May in very specific ways tomorrow, and we will be working to find words that describe her in all her May-ness. I hadn't thought of indefatigability before, or possibility either -- but those are good ones; she had both in abundance.

We want to know what words you have. Think about it on your way to the service. If you can't make it, submit a few here by clicking on the comments line below.  

The end game

When I want to remind myself how to write, I pull out my copy of Ernie Pyle's dispatches from World War II. I turn to The Death of Captain Waskow written at the Italian front on January 10, 1944. Casualties were being brought down a mountain trail on the backs of mules under a full moon. Pyle was with a group of GIs waiting in a cowshed when four more bodies came down. "This one is Captain Waskow," they were told by the soldiers leading the mules. Pyle records what happened next:

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, "God damn it." That's all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, "God damn it to hell anyway." He looked down for a few last minutes, and then he turned and left. Another man came. I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain's face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I'm sorry, old man." Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said: "I sure am sorry, sir." Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there. And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain's shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone. 

I thought of that several times at Arden Courts yesterday: When I first got there, and Nicole told me "She's had a lot of visitors this morning; all the staff have been by." When Sally from across the hall saw me and said, "Oh Bill, this has been so hard on all of us." When I caught glimpses of Mel and Wilbur, visiting spouses like me, and remembered how hard they worked to get May to smile when I wasn't there. And when I thought about that first day I came to meet with Betsy, to set up hospice care, and stopped to chat with Courtney in the lobby -- and she said, "I can't look at you," so we stood back-to-back and talked until Betsy arrived. This is a place where everyone knows what the end game is. But May was so young. And when she smiled, you could forget why she was there.

It's over

I was with her all day and left when hospice arrived for an 8 to midnight shift. She stopped breathing and showed no pulse at 8:40. Funeral arrangements pending at Donnellan Family Funeral Services at 10045 Skokie Boulevard in Skokie, IL.

The lovely one

They called me at 10 this morning and said I should come. When I got here, nurses and staff were gathered around her.She gurgled when she breathed, and I thought I had gotten here in the nick of time. But she tends to rally, and she's done it again. It's now 5 in the afternoon and the lobby has been closed for an hour. Just now, the woman who runs the kitchen came in to tell me she was leaving, and asked if I needed anything to eat or drink. I said water would be nice. She offered cookies too and I accepted. "I will bring them to you," she said, "but first," and with this she moved toward May's bed, "I put my hands on the lovely one." She placed both hands across the top of May's head for an instant, and then hurried off. Everyone today has been aware that this goodbye, especially with the holiday schedule, is probably forever.

Resting comfortably

The past three days have been the same, except for the fever on Wednesday. She's lying on her back with oxygen tubes in her nostrils. Eyes closed, breathing easily. Not eating now. They come in and turn her, and freshen her up. They look at me and say, "I'm sorry."

Walking and talking

A message comes in from Tami, who used to work at Arden Courts, where May has lived since October, 2010. She says:

I remember very fondly my time at the community and when I needed a break from the day and all the stress of work and being a mom, I could go find May. We would hold hands and walk around the center of the building. Walking and talking. This to me was a godsend because she was giving to me what I needed at the time. Peace and tranquility. I want you to know that May gave back to me every day that I saw her.

Yes.

A story

I've held off on telling this story, but I don't think I can keep standing in its way...

May did things in sevens. Seven years of her corporate career. Seven years of the two of us doing everything together. Seven years striking out on her own into the world of Peruvian shamanism and Native American ceremonial life. Seven years as an apprentice in the art of Black Hat Feng Shui. And now, seven years of Alzheimer's.

During the shamanism/Native American years, we made several trips to Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos to buy original art. When we moved to Evanston, she began the task of re-hanging all the art but only got a few things up before succumbing to the early stages of her condition. So in several rooms, still, there are framed objects leaning against walls where they were to have been hung.

In the small room off our bedroom, behind a portable clothes rack, on the floor leaning against a short wall, there was a large papier-mâché casting of an Indian medicine woman holding a tobacco pouch. The casting is inside a thick plastic box mounted on a heavy wooden base. In front of it, leaning against the medicine women, was a watercolor of an Indian offering his ceremonial pipe to a night sky.

When I got home Monday evening, I noticed that the door to the small room was closed and I went to open it, but there was some kind of obstruction. I peaked around the corner and saw winter coats on the floor. I pushed harder, and found the clothes rack on its side and partly dismantled. I looked behind the clothes rack and found the Indian with the pipe and the medicine woman no longer leaning against the wall. The medicine woman had set forth the chain reaction. Somehow she had pitched herself forward.

All this had happened while I was with May -- when she was seeing something over my right shoulder and trying desperately to tell me about it.

We bought this house in 2005 -- the medicine woman was in her seventh year leaning against that wall. This is the seventh home she has shared with us.

Yesterday and today

When I walked into her room yesterday, her eyes flashed with recognition. Her lips struggled unsuccessfully to make words. She lifted her head from the pillow and pointed to something over my right shoulder. Her body trembled. Her hands shook. There was something she urgently needed to tell me. She got a squirt of morphine every hour, with no effect, until finally they doubled the dose. I don't know what she wanted to say, but I do not doubt its significance. Today when I arrived I was told that she was "resting comfortably." That has been my observation as well. Her eyes are closed. She's breathing softly. She doesn't know I'm here. We talk about yesterday as "a hard one." But when all is said and done, that is the day I will remember. Possibly the last all-out attempt to be heard.

Timelines

It will be four weeks tomorrow since I got the call that it was time for her to go on hospice care. It was last Tuesday that I got a call that she was "declining fast." I pushed for a timeline and got one: three weeks; one if she stops eating. Then on Thursday, another call: you should come now. I asked how much time we had. 48 hours, max. She rallied at about the 40th hour and showed renewed interest in eating. Today has been another good day. She is resting comfortably now. I am by her side.