Beloved little Piers,° It was that flashing light just before bedtime last night. My brother transmitting a call from the charge nurse: “Your mother’s breathing has become very light, she’s gone down ‘a lot’ since y’all were here ((only a few hours ago)).”
° At 2 o’clock I awoke, not from a dream, with a sense of profound insecurity, of light panic. My legs began to ache, as they used to do when I was a child. And I was bigeyed, no drowsiness promising a quick return to sleep. A few avemarias, the only prayer I know that has any real point, a brief preamble, then cut to the chase: ”I’m frightened, comfort me.”
° But I was still frightened.
° So I used all the popquantum physics I know to summon my beasts. Panama, the magickal and magnificent Panama, to guard the window. Tira the wolfhound to guard the foot of the bed. Octavia the Siamese to drape herself on my neck. Asia, to cramp my legs the more. Whip and Crook, too young to do anything but get underfoot. Artemis the Unlucky I sent into the Breakfast Room to eat her fill of Asia‘s kitty numnums. Then I remembered she had no teeth. So I felt bad about that too.
° Got up at dawn, walked, dashed off the requested obituary--the new dominy never knew Mother as a person, he wanted some anecdotes, some sense of her active life. Was rushing out the door--everything to escape before the phone could ring--when I remembered I’d left out something very important, a Freudian slip. Supplied it hurriedly, reprinted, no harm done, no offense given. Out the door, no flashing light.
° Mother’s head was still visible through the window of her room, so she wasn’t dead yet. The tv was off, the roommate watching and waiting, she’s seen so many roommates die in her time; young as she is, she may see many more. Christmas carols on piano were playing softly by Mother’s bedside. I opened the blinds, spoke to her, her eyes opened and stared full through me. Then I put on the Mozart, then I yammered and yammered and yammered. The morphine took over, she closed her eyes.
° The lids are swollen, red, itchy. The eyes themselves seem to have shrunk, the blue much paler. She has supplemental oxygen through the nose, but breathes through the mouth. The tongue is crusted with yellow mucus or--. The nurses swab the interior of the mouth from time to time. I just pour a bit of water onto the side of the tongue, catch the dribble with a towel.
° But I never stop yammering. I tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t a better caregiver. I tell her all the tales of her childhood I can remember. I rub her feet. I’m horrified at what her appearance will be if this goes on and on, like Terry Schiavo.
° The dominy comes in, he was alarmed by the urgency of my obituary. I yammer at him. He listens like Leggero, like the charge nurse. He plans a moment of “closure” for the family at bedside, perhaps this afternoon.
° I thank Heaven we’ve got a Protestant. He’s dressed like a normal human being, he has normal human feelings, he’s free of that insane institutional sense of mumbojumboist selfimportance.
° Mother’s head was still visible through the window of her room, so she wasn’t dead yet. The tv was off, the roommate watching and waiting, she’s seen so many roommates die in her time; young as she is, she may see many more. Christmas carols on piano were playing softly by Mother’s bedside. I opened the blinds, spoke to her, her eyes opened and stared full through me. Then I put on the Mozart, then I yammered and yammered and yammered. The morphine took over, she closed her eyes.
° The lids are swollen, red, itchy. The eyes themselves seem to have shrunk, the blue much paler. She has supplemental oxygen through the nose, but breathes through the mouth. The tongue is crusted with yellow mucus or--. The nurses swab the interior of the mouth from time to time. I just pour a bit of water onto the side of the tongue, catch the dribble with a towel.
° But I never stop yammering. I tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t a better caregiver. I tell her all the tales of her childhood I can remember. I rub her feet. I’m horrified at what her appearance will be if this goes on and on, like Terry Schiavo.
° The dominy comes in, he was alarmed by the urgency of my obituary. I yammer at him. He listens like Leggero, like the charge nurse. He plans a moment of “closure” for the family at bedside, perhaps this afternoon.
° I thank Heaven we’ve got a Protestant. He’s dressed like a normal human being, he has normal human feelings, he’s free of that insane institutional sense of mumbojumboist selfimportance.
° That afternoon I rake the sheared and strimmed trimmings from the Terrace. It’s warm, I have a vague sense that folks might be coming to the house this week, better prepare. For the last half hour it rains, but I finish the job. It’s a warm rain, it won’t kill me.
° Indoors I remember that Sister Death is close by. I fidget, can’t concentrate on the text in front of me, can’t concentrate on the monitor either. I visit your new website, your staff foto won’t download. Don’t care, I know what you look like better than they do. I visit your old website, no sign of a successor, news of Pietro Bouvier.
° I search out Mother’s living will. I read it word for word. “No artificial means of providing food or water . . . . terminal condition as determined by the attending physician.” That is what it says, that is what it means. This is it. My brother and I have done what she directed us to do.
I just didn’t know it would look like what it does.
° I search out Mother’s living will. I read it word for word. “No artificial means of providing food or water . . . . terminal condition as determined by the attending physician.” That is what it says, that is what it means. This is it. My brother and I have done what she directed us to do.
I just didn’t know it would look like what it does.
° By bedtime I feel okay, I mean, I fall asleep with no trouble.
° The answering machine light isn’t flashing.
° The answering machine light isn’t flashing.
° Love, Giac.
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