A grey day on the hill - the gift of not knowing.

It is a grey day.  It seems it's like a bad day on the hill.

I walk away
It seems it's like a bad day
On the hill
I stand and stare away
Hoping for a brighter day
And I stand staring there
And I stand staring there today

-Toni Childs, House of Hope - 1991

And it will be a bad day.  It will be my worst.  To this day I can not say I have had a worse day before or since.  Maybe I have but I guess I don't want to get caught up in comparison.

Larry comes over in the morning.  He brings donuts and coffee.  Dunkin' Donuts®, the chocolate creme filled kind.  Coffee with cream.  Three years later to this day, that cream in it's packages still sits in the refrigerator.  When he comes through the front door as he passes through the living room he says hi to an unresponsive Wendy.  The oxygen machine continues to whir and hum in it's never ending cadence as the day marches to it's inevitable conclusion.

We go to the kitchen and talk.  I don't even remember what we talk about.  It seems to me it was like any other Sunday and I really didn't think anything was up.  Wendy had not been conscious for some time as in a day or two.  She may have been conscious in these last couple of days but it has not been apparent.

I don't even remember when she was last conscious.  Should I?  It feels like  I should. It may have been that previous Wednesday.  She may have been barely conscious on late Friday afternoon, December 4th.  I think at that point I was wanting her to not regain consciousness.  This is something I don't think I would have ever imagined thinking about someone.  Especially someone I loved so dearly.  I did love her didn't I?  These questions like when was she last conscious?  What were my last words to her?  What were her last words to me?  Did I love her enough?  These questions and many others like these have haunted me ever since.  All of them I can't answer.  All of them have answers but they are lost to me.

We were traveling fast.  Time was whizzing by taking all the little precious important details right along with it.  It is kind of like the draining of a bath tub.  In the beginning and for most of it you can't tell anything is happening.  The level is dropping but almost imperceptibly and then at some point you can see the bottom of the tub.  The murkiness of the soap starts to give way to to the color at the bottom and then the texture becomes apparent.  As the water level approaches the drain you can see the bubbles moving faster and faster toward the vortex until they make that last quick swirl and the ploop down the drain they go and it's all gone.  In those last couple of moments there is no time to catalog the details, record images, make notes of this is the last time this happens or this is the last time that happens because you need to be able to predict the future in order to understand you are experiencing something for the last time.  In the words of the mighty "Floyd"

"The time is gone, the song is over.
Thought I'd something more to say"

Every once in a while I would catch something.  But it wasn't like I could catch it while it was happening.  Like I said, I would need to be clairvoyant so it is only after she died that I was able to know that the last night we shared a bed would be on November 19th 2015.  On November 20th of 2015 she went into the hospice bed in the living room and would remain there until the end except to go to the bathroom as long as she was able to. She was very lucid on that night.  In fact it was kind of just another night with her except she was lying in the bed instead of on the couch.  Our friend Tara had come over like she did on Saturday nights and we would talk and visit and laugh.  That night was no different other than we decided that it would be best to have her sleep in the hospice bed.  I would sleep on the couch along side the bed.  Incidentally Tara would spend all the nights there in the guest bedroom until December 6th as well.  But November 19th of 2015 was the last night I would put my arm around her stomach and lock my legs in behind hers as we would spoon and drift off to sleep.

I can't tell you that if I would have known that that was the last night if that would have been a good thing or not.  If I would have known that that was the last night I would spend spooning with her it probably would have completely wrecked the experience.  If I would have known it, how could I not think about that being the last night.  I would have never gotten to sleep and therefore would not have had the warm comfortable experience of falling asleep with our bodies entangled.  In fact, as I write this it is becoming clear that not knowing stuff like, "this is the last night" or "these are our last words" is actually a gift.