Read part one
Read part two
Read part three
Read part four
Read Part five
Read Part six
Read Part seven
We're getting toward the end here.
Five years ago today, Art told me that for the first time he felt like he could just go to sleep and not wake up - and he told me that was okay.
Because of a bowel obstruction, Art couldn't eat anything or drink much. He was getting so weak that he had muscle spasms from trying to hold his head up.
Art had been doing counted cross stitch for years and he had been working on a huge project for our daughter and it dawned on him, this day five years ago, that he wouldn't be finishing it. He was spending time reading his Bible and listening to music. The pastor had visited and they had planned a funeral.
We had our first visit from hospice. There was a tiny bottle of medicine and we were told exactly how little would do what - and then we were told that the nurse that would come after he died would take the bottle and dump it - and never look at how much (or how little) was left.
We live in the city where a minor league hockey team plays and the general manager was a member at our church. He stopped by and dropped off an envelope and said that he didn't know what else he could do - so he gave us tickets to a finals game of the playoffs. We had a couple that we were close to who were huge hockey fans and they took the kids. It was things like this that really touched us.
But five years ago right now, we were in "waiting mode"
Grafted Branch
Now I'm sad. These type stories are hard but worthwhile examples to the rest of us. We'll all eventually have such stories to tell.
Gwynne
Interesting. That's kind of what I've been thinking...the stories of the end of life are valuable to us all. We will all share them, but until it happens to us, it's never quite as real.
Ellen
I don't know why I started all of this - I guess maybe it's that i left the only forum where it was posted and I wanted it somewhere.
That and when the "carnival of beauty" was happening every week, the week that would have been "beginnings and endings" will be the week of the "ending". It seemed like the right thing to start at the time and now I don't think that I can stop until I'm done...