She’s been my sister for 48 years since she married my oldest brother.
On Sunday, October 9, 2022, Harriet died.
I went to the hospital after church to visit them. When I got there, Steve was asking her what she wanted for lunch.
“Oranges. A strawberry drink,” she said.
He asked the nurse to get oranges and a strawberry drink for Harriet.
He sat beside her and held her hand. He fluffed her pillows and raised the head of the bed. She wanted to sit up because her body was tired and aching from lying in a hospital bed for three days.
Because she fell the first morning she was there, two nurses came in to transfer her from the bed to the chair.
Harriet sat on the side of the bed holding the walker, trying to make her legs stand. The nurses were patient and encouraging.
Suddenly, she slumped forward and mumbled, “I’m so sleepy.’
That’s the moment something inside her broke.
Four nurses and a doctor buzzed around her for twenty minutes. They moved the blood pressure cuff around, spoke to her to try and get her to respond, gave her instructions that she didn’t respond to. They milled in and out of the room speaking quietly between themselves.
The doctor came back to the room and told Steve that the infection didn’t cause this. The cancer she’d been battling for two and a half years had “taken off.” Her tumor markers “shot up” since her last tests.
A nurse sat down by Steve and looked in his eyes. “We can move her to the intensive care unit to stabilize her. Or we can give her comfort care right here. The outcome will be the same.”
Steve began to cry. “We’ve talked about this. We knew this might happen. But not today.” He reached for Harriet’s hand holding it between his. “Ever since she broke her legs in June she’s struggled, battling pain and challenge after challenge.
Early on a June morning, Harriet was at home when she fell. She broke her right thigh bone and left ankle. She had to have surgery to place a metal bar in her thigh.
Did she break her bones because of the fall? Or did the cancer weaken her bones until they broke, causing the fall. I don’t know. I do know that as the cancer made its way through her body, the sassy, boisterous person she always was became quieter and softer. It was a strange metamorphosis to witness.
Harriet didn’t want heroic intervention as part of her ending. Steve honored her wishes. The nurses monitored her. Gave her medicine to help her breathe easier, and she settled into her journey.
As I left the room, I heard him softly speaking about the 50th wedding anniversary they would never share. I pulled the door closed and left him alone for a bit so he could talk with her alone.
At 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, she quietly slipped away between the last breath and the next one that never came.
When someone dies, you live with their essence surrounding you. Their smell on a pillow. Their slippers by the bed. Their cup in the kitchen. The space where they sat on the couch. Unexpected moments when their memory speaks to your heart.
I think Harriet had a ‘welcome home’ party in heaven last Sunday. With the help of his tribe, Steve is negotiating the business of planning her earthly farewell. After that, I don’t know what will happen. He wants to go to the mountains and let Mother Nature soothe his soul. And think. And maybe . . . he will begin to dream a different dream.