When my dad was admitted to in-home hospice, he initially thought he was being discharged. This led to some confusion, as he sought to re-establish himself and get stronger, but Katrina sat down and told him that he’d been brought home not to recover but, eventually, to die. Dad has been prophesying his own demise for years, as he felt his exhausted body betraying him, so perhaps it was not a surprise that he should be accepting and philosophical in his response, telling her that “we can only be so possessive and let God do what he wants to do.”
Perhaps we should all hold the threads of our lives with such a slack grasp. It would lessen the griefs that I was mulling over today while driving away from my grandparents’ nursing home. The fields are mostly laid bare for the winter, and Lancaster’s summer green hills and blazing blue sky had been traded for a murky grey over barren browns. I passed a patch of milkweed and was struck by the thought of all the things that my parents and probably my grandparents will never see again. And most of them so unremarkable that you could hardly think back and say, ah that was the last cardinal.
I love how attention anchors me in present experience and helps me to recall and relive those moments again at a later time. It also makes it more painful: to remember the precise weight of Bear’s body in my arms and the smell of the fur at the nape of her neck also sharpened the edge of grief.
We are most present to those with whom we are most intimate. Wherever our minds may be, we are brought home to our bodies by touch, which demands that we come out of ourselves and take heed. Grandma is confined to a wheelchair after a month in the hospital, and her only complaint was that she could not move close enough to Grandpa, who has fairly limited mobility, to give him a kiss. Maybe it was easier for Dad to be philosophical about his own passing because he had already lost the one who could hold him in time.
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