Fast as Molasses

A SISTER’S PERSPECTIVE

This will be a tough, and long story.  Grab a hanky, hunker down.

My sister’s name is Laura.  She’s six years older than me.  She’s my hero.  We speak the same language, only you won’t hear it.  We can have an entire conversation without ever saying a word.  We finish each other’s sentences.  We laugh alike.  We think the same things are funny.  We laugh at things when we shouldn’t.  You get the picture.  She is a school teacher by trade; first grade.  Patient, loving and firm.  She pales at the sight of blood, and funeral homes stop her in her tracks.  Just a few fun facts about my dear, darling sister. Oh, and she’s a Cinderella fanatic.  Well, actually, more like a closet Cinderella Freak.  She’s had some rough years, a former spouse was less than worthy of her.  But she came out on the other side a stronger, wiser woman, ready to take on the world. 

About eight years ago, at church,  she ran into a guy she thought she recognized from high school.  He was tall and handsome.  She immediately went home and looked him up in her old high school yearbook. (oh, yeah, another fun fact – she never EVER gets rid of anything)  It was him.  His name was Dennis.  But wait, she’d met him at church and he said his name was John.  What?  Slight panic and confusion for about 3.72 minutes, until she realized he’d gone by his middle name in school.  Whew.  He decided he wanted to be “John” in adulthood; his dad’s name is John, so growing up, “Dennis” cut down on confusion.

She’d call me every time she saw and/or talked to him at church.  Eventually they went out.  I don’t remember the details of how it all happened, but it happened.  They were smitten with one another, and for good reason.  They liked the same things, enjoyed life at the same pace (slow), laughed at the same jokes, loved family and friends.  They became very serious.  John soon became part of the fabric of her life.

John was a carpet cleaner by trade.  He owned Angel Carpet Cleaning.  He had been in business for many years, and had a very loyal following.  He worked very hard and was proud of his business.  His busiest season of the year was in August when the college students would all move out of their apartments.  He’d contract with complexes to clean all of their floors.  Those were long, hot days, but he loved the work.  The fun part of his job, especially that time of year, was finding what people would leave behind.  It’s kind of an unwritten rule between the carpet cleaners and housekeepers and owners, that you got dibs on stuff in the order you came in to clean.  What you didn’t want, you left for the next service person.  So, he’d constantly bring left-behind items home.  Some were really good and neat, and others were junk.  After a couple of years of us seeing him bring the mother lode, he explained to us that the students also just haul 96.4% of their belongings out to the dumpster when they move out.  They can’t cram all of their stuff into their two-door coupe, so they just leave it in the parking lot.  So, the “dumpster diving” began.  My sister and I would make the rounds through the campus side of town and get everything they left behind that was suitable for a garage sale.  We’d then have said garage sale and make pure profit.  It was grossly hot and nasty and we’d look like white trash by the time we were done, but it was fun.  And John would always humor us.  He’d bring us breakfast from McDonald’s and hang out with us in the yard.

He and Laura spent lots and lots of time together.  They’d go hiking, canoeing, visit state parks, ride to Jacksonville to this giant book store, ride to the coast, hang out at Best Buy, work her junk/antique booth.  It didn’t really matter.  They were together and loved being that way.  After a few years, though, the marriage question came up.  It seemed as though they were content as they were, boyfriend and girlfriend, my house your house, happy.  I know they talked about it, but I don’t know what they said.  Not my business, really.

Then one day things changed on a dime.  John was at his house.  He called Laura late one evening.  He wasn’t making any sense.  Talking nonsense words.  She stayed on the phone with him for a while until he seemed to come out of it.  She hung up with him and called me as she was getting in her car to go see about him.  While we were talking he called her back; she switched over.  She switched back to me.  He was making even less sense.  We decided she had better call an ambulance.  They arrived within moments of one another.  John was in his recliner.  He was talking oddly. Not making sense.  Saying crazy stuff.  They got him in the ambulance.  He had a seizure.  They got him to the hospital.  He flat-lined.  With my sister alone in the room with him.  They aroused him.  They put him in ICU.  They couldn’t decide if it was heart or head.  Multiple tests later, they treated him for heart, but decided it was really his head.  He had a brain tumor.  Cancer.  That’ll ruin your day.

That fateful night started a chain of events a year and a half long.  Surgery, then again, and again.  Chemo, radiation, symptoms, doctor visits, medications.  It all helped for a short while, then it didn’t help any more.  It was clear the cancer would be the winner.  It was a type that no one – no one – ever survived.  The fact that he remotely responded to the first treatment was remarkable.

The decline was slow at first.  The tumor was on his “speech center”, so he often said really crazy stuff.  He mostly got his nouns and pronouns mixed up, or substituted for.  It could be a challenge to figure out what he meant sometimes.  You’d have to take the context of the paragraph, not just the sentence.  But, it was do-able.  He kinda stayed at that level for a while.  Time began to take on a new meaning.

John would seem to level out, plateau, then over the course of just a couple of days, he would noticeably decline.  The reality of it was that he would not live to be an old man.   Time began to move fast as molasses.

You know how time goes.  It seems to fly by.  It all goes so fast.  You look back and can’t believe the day is over; the week has passed, the month is gone.  Yet when walking through a situation, time takes on a surreal molasses feel.  It is thick.  It is sticky, almost palpable, tangible.  You look back over it and see the thin, fast streak of time.  But when you are in it, it is molasses.

John’s perspective was always, well, his.  He never had fear. Always gracious in the face of the unknown.  Apparently John realized that my sister was the best thing to ever happen to him (biased sister comment) and he decided he needed to marry her.  He wanted to spend the last of his time on this plain with the love of his life.  He concocted a plan to propose.  I, and Laura’s co-workers were in on it.  It was great fun.  She’s got pictures and video of the occasion and a gorgeous ring.  I don’t think I had ever seen him smile so much before that day.

The engagement was really, really short.  Another plan was concocted.  They decided that since his parents couldn’t come, they would have a very, very private ceremony.  Just the two of them and the man who would perform the ceremony.  He is a friend of theirs who has performed a couple hundred weddings.  His wife came and took some pictures for them.  I did not know that his wife was coming to take those pictures, so I concocted a plan of my own.  It was a weekday afternoon, May 5, cinco de Mayo.  I called one of my girlfriends who was off work that day, and likes to be in on the plan.  She put on a big floppy hat, put her camera around her neck, and took out like a tourist.  She’d snap a picture of a plant, then sneak one of the happy couple.  They got married at Oven Park, a local park with lots of lovely flowers, plants, and a gazebo.  My friend rushed back to me with the camera and I rushed to the corner store to print the pictures.  I put them in an album and surprised my sister with them.  She added the pictures their friend took and has a lovely wedding album.

But, then the plot thickens.  Their class reunion was coming in June and another plan was concocted.  They decided, along with the planning committee, that they would have a public ceremony on the formal dinner night of the reunion.  It was a surprise to the group.  The families came and shared in the fun.  Well, almost all the family.  John’s Mom and Dad were there.  His brother’s wife, Jennifer, and their daughter Georgia.  Georgia was the flower girl.  Our parents couldn’t come because our Daddy had such a bad case of shingles.  He was sick for weeks.  My Bobby couldn’t come because he had to work, because he had taken so much time off work with me, because I had just had surgery the previous Monday.  So my oldest, Ross, took me in a wheelchair, and my youngest, Marshall, was the bell-ringer.  We were a sight.  But so excited for John and Laura.  They had a beautiful ceremony, performed by a class-mate.  A reception obviously attended by their friends.  A beautiful cake, pretty flowers, lots and lots of smiles.  A reporter from the local paper was there and they ran an article the next week.  It was fairy tale.

John and Laura decided to take their honeymoon a little later.  They went to the east coast to a little island over there.  I can’t remember where, but it was old and historical and they just loved it.  Took lots of pictures, talked to people, stayed at a B & B, saw the sights.  They created wonderful memories.

He moved all of his junk in with her junk (again, biased sister comment) and they seemed to really enjoy living together.  Of course the doctor appointments continued and there always seemed to be a plan of action.  But that did not dampen the fun they were having at home.  One thing I totally appreciated about John is that he knew how to “blend in”.  He made it really clear to Laura that he did not want to change her lifestyle, but wanted to be a part of it.  And that if she wanted to do things with her family, or still have Marshall spend the night with her, that it was perfectly ok with him.  Sweet.  He was very thoughtful that way.

Another thing, he kept her laughing – all the time.  Every time I called the house, she was laughing.  And usually he made her laugh the whole time we were on the phone.  Sometimes we had to stop our conversation and try again later.

Things rocked along pretty well during the summer.  Laura is a school teacher, so she had time off to spend with John.  I am sure they cherished every moment.  She went back to school in the fall and John continued to work.  Her bosses were really good about letting her have time off to go to appointments with John, and she troopered through each and every one. But it became painfully obvious that time was beginning to slip away.  By Thanksgiving John could no longer work.  By Christmas his business had been sold, all treatments stopped, and Hospice called in.  We had a nice, peaceful, gentle family Christmas.  John seemed to like his gifts; lots of pajama pants and slippers.  They enjoyed Christmas break from school, but things got a little hairy the day after Christmas.

John stayed in bed, sick, for two days after Christmas.  The hospice nurse had a time finding my parent’s house in the woods, but she eventually got there.  She assured John he’d bounce back, if even just a little.  He seemed to be having a rough time with some meds.  He did perk up and they went home after a couple of days.  John’s parents came to stay the first week of January, so Laura could go back to work.   That was all she could take.  Her heart and mind were home with John.  So she talked with her boss and arranged to take a leave from school.  It was time for her to be with him.  The molasses was thicker.

John’s verbal skills seemed to be declining faster, as were his physical skills.  Soon, he needed a walker, then a shower seat, then a hospital bed.  The air was getting more still, the molasses colder, slower.  The inevitable was approaching.

I went for a visit every Sunday for the last few weeks.  The Sunday before the hospital bed arrived, John was ready to get off the couch and go to bed for a nap.  He would lean on his walker, but this time, couldn’t get off the couch by himself.  Laura and I helped him up and walked with him to the bedroom.  When we got there but were a few feet from the bed, he set the walker aside and stumbled into the bed!  I totally panicked!  I thought he had fallen and was so afraid he had hurt himself.  Silly me.  He was totally cutting the fool – doing it on purpose just to freak me out!  Little stinker.  He never lost his sense of humor.  He laughed as he fell into the bed!

It was not long before he never got out of bed again.  The Hospice staff took care of him in the bed.  The nurse assistant bathed him in bed, changed his sheets without him getting up.  He talked less, but still ate plenty.  One afternoon, Mama, Laura and I were piled up in the bedroom with him and decided it was lunch time.  He ate more than I did.  Mama fed him most of it.  Laura fed him some, and so did I.  We were a mess.  Food all in his moustache, on his hand; but he loved every bite.  He’d sip from a straw and take his meds crushed in applesauce.  He was happy to have the company in the bedroom with him.  He never seemed to mind the hen chatting; often times breaking into a full snore in the middle of our sentences.  Funny even when he was asleep.  That day, while mama and Laura were preparing things for him, they left the room.  Laura said, “you stay and entertain him”. So, I climbed into Laura’s bed beside the hospital bed and started talking to him.  Just random stuff mostly.  But I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “hey, look at me, I want to tell you something.”  He slowly turned his head in my directions, eyes a little foggy from the meds.  I said, “I just want you to know I am glad you married my sister.  You are her Prince Charming.”  He smiled and gave a gentle laugh, then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

By the end of the week, he was never out of the bed, slept most of the day and only had applesauce.  The nurses were coming to check on him, bathe him and take his vitals.  His right arm and hand were drawn and painful to the touch.  By Friday he had fever.  His regular nurse saw that it was time to get around the clock care.  Laura was exhausted from every-hour-on-the-hour medication dispensing and John was becoming more and more “imminent” as they say.

So, I cancelled the rest of my week at work, Mama had not left their house for 8 days and Laura needed a break.  We were hunkered down for the duration – however long it may be.  At 4 o’clock Friday afternoon, the first 24/7 nurse arrived. Loretta.   She was delightful.  She and Laura had some lovely conversations and she took over the medication dispensing so Laura could have a break.  We went to the kitchen, had a bite to eat, talked about “things”.  Funny how when you have to, you can have “those” conversations.  Then at 7 o’clock, the night nurse came.  Her name was Pam.  She was delightful, too.  Pam and Loretta compared notes, filled out some papers, and had a changing of the guard, so to speak.  But then they also had a conversation with us.  They felt as though John wasn’t sick enough to warrant their presence.  “Caregiver fatigue” is no longer a valid reason to have 24 hour care.  The patient must show certain signs of imminence for them to be there.  John did show a few signs; cold extremities, low blood pressure, shallow breathing.  But, his breathing was consistent and his respirations not far apart.  Laura and I had a moment of panic.  We looked at one another with big eyes and began to question the nurses.  They felt they had to make themselves clear, but assured us that Pam would stay the night.  Once they start a shift, they finish it.  But, in their eyes we really needed to know that they probably wouldn’t get to stay the next day.  He could go on like this for a few more days.

We took a deep breath when Pam told us she’d stay the night.  We went back to the kitchen and re-grouped and gave Pam a chance to get comfortable in the room.  She had her laptop, some books, her Hospice notebook, her phone.  She kinda camped out at the foot of Laura’s bed, and seemed comfortable enough.   Laura and Mama were doing things around the house so I took the opportunity to go in and talk with Pam.  She asked me if John’s breathing sounded different.  It did.  It was more shallow.  Still very evenly paced, but not as deep.  We talked about how close she thought he was to the end, and she said she thought it would still be a while.  She actually had a patient one time that went for three weeks like this.  I stared blankly at her.  She didn’t think John would do that, but she did think he could go another day or two.  I told her about Laura’s plan for when John did stop breathing, just in case it happened on her shift.  Pam was a sweetheart.  She felt for us as family members.  We felt for her as a nurse.  She gave John his meds every hour and told Laura it would be ok if she got some rest.  Laura was beyond tired, so she crawled into bed.  She’s a world-class sleeper, so Pam’s light and little bit of noise didn’t bother her.  Mama took the couch, I was in Marshall’s room.  We slept for about an hour or hour-and-a-half.

Then around 12:45 or so I heard mama walking.  She was coming to the room where I was.  I was awake.  She leaned over and said, “John’s almost gone.”  I said I was coming.  I went to Laura’s bedroom doorway and stood there with Mama.  Heart pounding.   Pam was still sitting at the foot of the bed, but the computer had been put away and the Hospice book was turned to “that page”.  Her phone was the only other thing out.  Laura was sitting up in her bed next to John’s bed.  She had put the two beds right next to each other, so basically they were in bed together, but John’s bed could be adjusted.  She had her hand on his shoulder.  His breathing was terribly labored.  Shallow, further apart.  The air was still as still could be.  Thick, slow, the molasses had almost come to a stop.  There was no movement in the universe.  The world slowed to an almost complete stop.  His breathing now further apart.  10 seconds between.  20 seconds between.  35 seconds.  60 seconds.  65 seconds.  His last breath.  Every time he’d take a breath Pam would touch her phone to make it illuminate to see what time it was, in case it was his last breath.  After the last 65 seconds there was no more breath in him.  Pam stood up and went over to John.  She took out her stethoscope and listened.  John let out a short, quick puff.  It startled us all and made Laura jump.  Pam was calm and listened intently.  There was no more heartbeat.  She looked at my sister and said “1:24”.  That was the time on her clock when he breathed his last.  The air in the room stopped.  The molasses no longer flowed.  The odd sensation of this plain and the heavenly plain colliding makes this world seem to be in a vacuum.  A time vortex.  A surreal, “where am I?” sensation.

Laura slowly got off the bed and made her way to the kitchen.  Mama went with her, I stayed with Pam for just a minute.  I wanted to make sure she was ok, too.  She said she was and that she would handle things.  I went to the kitchen.  We put on a pot of coffee and waited for Pam to come in.  The meds had to be accounted for and destroyed.  Laura wanted her signature on the form.  Shortly after, the gentlemen from the funeral home arrived.  They were sweet as could be and dressed in full suit and tie – at 2 o’clock in the morning.  They did their job with utmost respect and bid us goodnight.  We were to go see them at 11 in the morning.  Pam finished her duties and hugged us all goodbye.  She was a God-send for us.  So kind and compassionate.

At Pam’s suggestion, I went ahead and cleaned up Laura’s room, even though it was the wee hours of the morning.  Laura and Mama turned on the tv, although I am sure neither of them were watching it.  It was just noise.  I went in her bedroom and began my task.  I threw away quite a bit.  Things that she didn’t need to see.  Medical supplies, plastic things, half-used lotions, potions and such.  Some things  I packed up for the nurse to take and use, like gloves, tape and so forth.  I put things away as best I could.  Filled trash bags.  The bedsheets were still warm.  That made my world stop, yet again.  I stripped her bed and put fresh, spring colored sheets on.  Straightened up her dresser and then took the trash bags out to the garbage can.

By this point she was ready to go lay down.  She was in total shock and total exhaustion.  She went to Marshall’s room and slept in the twin bed.  Mama and I took the couches.  It was 4:20 when I heard mama start to snore.  I was snoring shortly thereafter, according to her.  We none slept well, but we slept some.  We got up in a daze the next morning.  Still in the surreal thickness of what had happened.  We got dressed and made it to the funeral home a bit before 11 a.m.  The gentlemen there were wonderful.  They take care of every detail with loving kindness.  Daddy saw our car there and came in, too.  He hugged Laura and told her how proud he was of her and how she had handled everything.  Sweet words from a sweet daddy.

We convinced Mama to go home that afternoon.  She was exhausted, too, and needed her own bed and home.  Laura and I had a quiet day.  The phone only rang once.  No one came over, and she was good with that.  She needed to have a little space.  Still in shock.  Still surreal stillness.  The home health guy had come to get the hospital bed that afternoon, so she and I re-arranged her bedroom that night.  Moved the furniture around, put new pretties out, made it like spring.  Re-arranged the dining room a little bit and put some new pictures on the walls all around.  She was ready to crawl into her bed and sleep.  Heavy sleep.  Exhausted sleep.

I was awake before I heard her get up Sunday morning, but I stayed in bed and let her have some space.  She needed to walk around her house and feel the floor under her feet again.  She needed to hear the creak of the kitchen cabinet and smell the coffee that she made.  I eventually got out of bed and joined her in the living room.  We chit-chatted and decided we neither one wanted to make breakfast, so, in our pj’s, we got in the car and drove through Burger King.  then to the gas station to get a newspaper.  It’s Havana, nobody cares, we fit right in.

Mama, Daddy, Bobby and Marshall came over in the afternoon.   Then her sister-in-law’s mom and dad and aunts came by.  It was a lovely visit.  NASCAR was on tv and some of the neighbors stopped in.  She had a guest book on the piano for people to sign.  They were all bringing food.  Another of her friends came by, but wouldn’t come in.  She wasn’t ready for it.  She left a great bag of goodies.  Word was beginning to get out and people were calling and coming by.  Sweet people.  Good friends.

Sunday night, we all cleared out and left Laura alone.  It was ok, she was ready.  Well, as ready as you could ever be.  People have been by almost every day and she talks to friends every day.  Plans were being made for his memorial service.  It would be the following Saturday.

Time was beginning to take on a more normal feel.  Normal in the sense of how it passes, not normal emotionally.  There will be many tears, many emotions, many things to “chew on” as we say.  I have cried with my friends, Laura has cried with hers.  There will always be a void that cannot be filled, but always, always there will be nothing but good memories.  Happy pictures in our minds.  Kind words to soothe the sorrow.

My sister is a strong woman.  I admire her.  She has walked through something that not everyone could.  She is smart.  She will work this out the way that is best for her because she knows herself.  I can only hope that I can be there for her when she needs me.  That I will notice when those times are in front of me.  That she will know she is loved and not alone.  That I can help her as much as she has helped me in my life.  I love my sister.