Chapter One
Deathbed
Sitting on the recliner still up at three in the morning, the nurses having just left for the last time, James Hollins began to have an understanding of why people wished to believe in an afterlife. That was the harshest thing to have gone through in my life, he thought.
“It was okay until they took her body out of here” he said to Jessica. She nodded her agreement, her eyes glazed over much like he imagined his own to be. It was hard to say more to her, though, as she was the one in the room who believed in the afterlife. Although James kinda figured that maybe he was the only one in the room who did not believe in it. He thought back about these final previous hours and remembered his dad holding her hand and telling her “I will see you when I get to heaven, Mary.” He said it a couple of times to his wife that last day, her mind gone and her body sleeping, almost restfully but not quite, as if when you touched her foot she would startle awake, or that an escaped snore would bring her to the surface as if it were only an afternoon nap. But there were no snores escaping that last day, only the steady labored breathing of the cancer taking over the lungs, and when James held her foot, “they will get darker the closer she gets to passing” Rosario, the hospice nurse, had mentioned yesterday, or was it the day before, James wondered? No it was only this morning, and my god, my mom is gone from me now and that was too quick, and as James held her foot or her hand that final day there was no movement or acknowledgment of awareness in her and James supposed it was a coma and with one hand felt relief that the morphine kicked in and the pain had subsided enough for her to rest.
“That was just harsh” James said aloud, perhaps to his sister or maybe his father, who was wondering in and out of the room doing things, taking steps, being in charge because that was what he had to do in order to grieve properly.
The caretakers from the funeral home had come in just after three in the morning. Time of death occurred at 1:18 but the nurse who stayed with us was not allowed to document it, and her supervisor came over the house and listed the time about an hour later. That was when the call was made to the Neptune Society, and they were going to do all the work for us, the family, and ease the transition immensely. And they did, of course. The caretakers came from across town, dressed somberly in suits at that hour and driving matching black unmarked Suburbans. James had walked out to smoke a cigarette when they got here and thought about how similar the cars were to some secret government society and let his mind wander for a bit as he puffed quickly on the Winston. When he returned to the house they were wrapping her much like a mummy, in the sheet she was sleeping on. They lifted her gently and placed her on the gurney and they offered the family a few more moments with their matriarch, stepping outside for their own cigarette break and returning after the Hollins family said goodbye again. When they returned to the living room they wheeled her toward the door and stopping only briefly they covered her face properly and wheeled her out the door and down the path toward the drive. That would be the last time James would see his mother, and gentle and caring as the funeral parlor was, it was the harshest thing in the world to watch happen. He could compare it to one day losing his son and that was an even more unbearable scenario, so it gave him perspective. Everybody lost their moms, or just about everybody did anyway. He was now one more member of a crowded club.
That would most likely sum up Richard Hollins's feelings about it all as well. With his brother and sister at separate seats in the living room he had opted to sit nearby in the breakfast nook. It was always peculiar the way his family spent time together. There was a time about twenty years earlier when a part of the AIDS quilt had come through St. Paul, and Richard had seen it with some of his friends. He had of course understood there was a theme running through it, and he understood the meaning behind the patches, felt the pain and the loss of several friends to the disease, some of whom had patches in the quilt project. But there was still no unity between one patch of the quilt and the next. This was red and the next had photographs and the one beneath those had a child's drawing sewn in. It was all beautiful and sad at the same time and Richard thought at the time that there was not a lot of sense in mourning this way about somebody.
Yet here he was, himself in mourning at the loss of his mom, a part of his family of course but they all maintained their own solitary space within the house. If they were not playing cribbage together, or now that the unity of caring for their mother was no longer necessary, each member of the family was in their own private corner mourning as best they could. Of course it had been only six hours now, the dark of the previous night turning to bright Florida sunshine, the patriarch of the family outside on the front porch smoking a cigarette and squinting at the east rising sun. He decided to join him out there, wondering if they would continue smoking outside now that she was gone. And much like sharks, he got up and walked outside while his sister got up from the couch to walk into the spare bedroom, needing just a bit more private space.
And this is how we will finish out our lives, James thought, running in and out of each others peripheral vision, involved in each others lives here and there but in all honesty James was much more involved in people's lives that he saw on a daily basis. Not those whom he saw in traffic, necessarily, like that homeless woman he passed most mornings walking the opposite direction, nor the girl in the gas station who smiled at him when he got his morning cup of joe. But his friends, his close friends he had made here in Memphis the past fifteen years, had more of an impact on his thoughts and his feelings than his parents and siblings did. But that seemed to be how it always went. The disassociation of society that started about the same time that cable TV came into its own had affected most of his friends, young and old, in the same manner. Of course when it came to his own son, Joseph would be different, wouldn't he?
And as the thoughts of his son came into his head James again missed him and wished he was here with him. At nine years old it did seem inappropriate to bring him down to watch his grandma pass from this world into the next. One more reason to be home, James felt, even as he felt guilty for thinking that. It was all happening too fast and there was not enough sleep this past week. James remembered tossing and turning on Tuesday, thinking that something was wrong and feeling that something had changed about his mom, another stroke perhaps, or maybe stronger pain medication again. But his father had assured him that everything was normal. And after a fitful sleep on Tuesday, and after barely clocking into work the next day, his dad had called him and suggested he come down.
“It might be time, Jimmy.”
“Okay” was all that James was capable of replying. At least instincts took over and within the hour he was packed (a few pair of boxers in a bag and some t-shirts, if that's packed enough) and on the road to Jacksonville. And after thirteen hours on the road he walked into the living room to see his mom on the hospital bed, set where her recliner used to be, unable to talk and trying desperately to communicate through her eyes.
“It's okay, Ma. I know. It's okay. James is here. And Richard.” A repeated chorus of assurances uttered while in between the phone calls would come and brothers and sisters would cry over the phone and say goodbye to her while she made noises of acknowledgment. All the while James was thinking she's in pain, she's in pain, and Roger, her husband of nearly fifty years was telling her “Wait for Jessica, she's on her way” and all the while Richard, the younger and more recently prodigal son by her side wanting to blame somebody, anybody, for what he had to endure here. And Jessica by now on the plane from Miami and thinking how close can I get without actually getting there, as the plane sat and sat and continued to sit on the tarmac for an extra hour until finally the engines once again roared and the plane was in the air and headed north where her brother would pick her up and bring her to the house, bring her home. Even though this was not their home, and it was only a house, their second house since retirement in this state in fact, and none of them had a connection, or a bond to this house. Only little Joey, the first and probably last grandchild, had any connection here. This was the only house he knew for his popo and nano, names struck upon as an infant that stuck on through the toddler years, and he, now almost ten and the only one with a history here, still in Memphis learning about what was happening through somebody else and not through experience.
Another hour and Jessica is here now, eyes welled up from the tears and the travel and her mom holding onto consciousness only in order to see her, to look into her daughters eyes and Jessica say her god, her savior, in those eyes and even as her mom looked lost and frightened, asking through only those eyes and through the reaching out with her right arm (the left one lost to a stroke a month earlier) if it would be okay and her daughter assuring her that it would, of course it would, and that “It's okay to go now”. And Roger Hollins, the patriarch, the bread winner and the new authority of the family, telling her “It's okay, you can go now”. And now finally here comes the nurse and they are injecting morphine instead of the pill form and there is instant relief in the woman's eyes and most likely in her heart and in a while she is asleep and it's Thursday now and the family will watch her sleep another twenty four hours before she finally lets go.
So we spend the night tossing and turning and everybody is exhausted and they all know that it is death watch but they also understand that it isn't tonight. It remains unspoken between them, if only because the family will not remain in the same room together, nobody speaks of it but they all understand that she will sleep tonight and tomorrow maybe “her toes will darken and then her legs, as the blood slows down”, according to Rosario, and they all know they are in this for days. And Roger spends the last night with his wife, while the children, grown adults all of them now, sleep in separate rooms, and if we eavesdrop politely on their conversation we hear him ask for forgiveness and offer gratitude. Roger carries love absolutely for his wife and no matter how strong he holds up or appears to act he is crumbling under the surface. And no matter how weak kneed he feels and how scared of the future he remains steady and calm as she reassures him through the language of matrimony, that everything will be okay. Roger makes his peace with his wife and with his life.
Mary December Hollins nee Parker was never one to surrender easily, and she continued to hang on throughout the entire day Thursday. Unconscious she remained, unaware of her surroundings but on some level completely present. The hospice crew came in and they gave her one more bath. And they removed her dentures and they changed the sheets on her bed and put on a clean nightgown. Mary Hollins, her life gone and her dignity strong, went through the day like this while her family each said goodbye to her in their own way. Her breathing began slowing and even though you could hear the water in the lungs and they could know that the cancer was eating away at her, she seemed peaceful regardless. She was not so much comforted as she was no longer comforting. I mean, it was as if she was done taking care of them all, her family, ready finally to let them fall or climb as they needed to in their lives, and with that came a sense of calmness that allowed her to move on. And she passed in the night, from living to no longer, and here now the family sat and stirred and tried to sleep and tried to comfort each other and once in a while their worlds joined together and mostly they swirled along side of each other, and now, at eight o'clock the next morning, the living continued to do just that.
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