Sweetie peace

[rhialto]

This entry is public as a memory for Isabelle (babounet on lj).
This morning I was woken up early by the phone but  could not get to it soon enough. I had to find the voice mail number and wade through some messages to find that it was indeed, as I feared, the hospital, and they said to call back urgently. The Critical Care nurse I spoke to told me she had a turn for the worse in the night, her oxygen levels were dropping, and they had tried to use the blood filtering machine but it didn't work well enough. I went there as soon as I could, only making some sandwiches. Her lodger Jason gave me a lift in his car and Satchel (his boyfriend; they are marrying next week) came with me inside. She was sort of asleep, like yesterday with the morphine - her eyes not quite closed. When the doctors came around they took us to a side room, with a big delegation. They explained that her organs were not working well enough, even after trying to kickstart them with allopurinol and steroids, and that they were shutting down. That sort of conveyed the message that it was very very bad and getting worse. They didn't even expect her to wake up, and thought it would be a couple of hours, not more.

I went to sit with her and hold her hand, stroke her head, and kiss her forehead. I also whispered into her ear how much I love her, that she is my little cute sweetie pea, that I will always love her and that I know she loves me. I think she squeezed my hand twice on one occasion, but it was very weak and she gave no other sign of consciousness, even though I was looking for it all the time. I so hope it means that she could hear me.

On the heart and breathing monitor her pulse and breathing went down over a couple of hours. While 120 is much too fast normally, I didn't  take it as a good sign. In the end, it was  difficult to see when she had really stopped breathing, but it was about 12.45 that it was definitely over. She had passed away.

She was so peaceful, my little cute sweetie pea. Now she is in sweetie peace. No more horrible chemo and its side effects for my love. It is what she wanted (although she would have liked some nicer surroundings). I wish she would have woken up one more time to say goodbye properly - even though I couldn't speak properly because I would be crying.

Comments

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry. I had no idea she was seriously ill again. This all seems to have been very fast, but I suppose you both knew that the cancer had returned in September. I hope that the past few months have been mostly good for you.

I never know what to say in comments like this - I can't possibly know what you're going through. So instead, I will quote a post I read years ago on alt.polyamory that sums it up better than I could:

From: Xiphias Gladius (ian@io.com) (xiphias)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Date: 2001-04-22 18:29:17 PST

I like the Jewish rules of what you do when you visit a house of mourning.

You go in to the house, leave food in the kitchen (because you can't expect a mourner to do things like feed themselves -- they're in mourning), you go into the room they're in, you sit on the floor with them, and you shut up.

If the mourner wants to talk, you listen. If you mourner seems to want you to respond, you respond. If the mourner wants to pretend that everything is all exactly normal and wants to have a normal conversation, you have a normal conversation.

But basically, you sit there in the dark on the floor with all the mirrors covered and you shut up.

And I like the traditional Jewish greeting to mourners. It's the only
not-completely-stupid-and-insulting thing to say in that situation that I've ever heard.

"May you be comforted."

Well, the full version is more like "May you be comforted among the mourners of Israel," but the short version works in more situations.

You don't try to say that it's not that bad. You don't try to say that it *is* that bad. You don't tell them that things will get better. You don't tell them that you understand what they're going through.

Because it may be that bad, or it may not. Things may get better, or they may not. And, no matter what, you *never* understand what they're going through, even if you've gone through it yourself, because you're different people.

Anger and sadness are every bit as valuable as happiness.

- Ian

I'm sorry for your loss. May you be comforted.