Good Morning, Goodbye.

Yesterday I had the joy and sadness of saying good morning to my husband Jim for the very last time.  Good morning, such simple words, yet as I spoke them, it felt like they were the most important words I could ever say.  For the past 17 1/2 years, I said good morning to this man every day.  I took those words for granted. For nine months we have fought side by side to battle our foe, cancer.  As chemo was successfully fighting the tumors, it also created opportunities for nefarious infections to take hold.  He fought bravely and well and in the end was able to die in peace and dignity, surrounded by love.  He was, and always will be, my love, my heart, my breath, my life.  

On Monday morning, Jim's breathing was improving and we were, as always, hopeful.  As the day ended, things, as they say, took a turn for the worst.  He was very agitated and just wanted to come home.  He was unable to get enough breath and we had to make the decision to intubate so he could have enough oxygen.  The thing we'd hoped to avoid was staring me in the face.  I looked in Jim's wide eyes and asked him if he wanted a tube down his throat so he could breathe.  Life wants to live.  He said yes.  So I said yes.

The crash team was awesome and let me stay at Jim's side, whispering all my love, strength and life into his ear, as they worked quickly and with precision around me. They explained every step as they went and treated us both with compassion.  They moved us down the hall, from Progressive Care to Intensive Care (ICU).  Then I started making some of the most difficult phone calls I've had to make.  We did not know how much damage had been done nor how long he would last.  Tuesday was an incredibly long day. When you are on a ventilator, they have to keep you sedated so you don't struggle  against the machine.  We were told he could hear us, but was unable to make any response.

Throughout the day I sought out our care team to get as much information as I could.  Since Jim and I knew intubation was a possibility, I knew the terms that were and were not acceptable to him.  If there was a way that being on the ventilator could give him the strength his needed to be able to come off it, it was okay.  But if there was no life without it, he did not want that.  So I asked some difficult questions and recieved difficult answers.  His lungs could not now or ever sustain life.

At one point I was alone with him and I read him some poems and prayers and promises.

I read a Buddhist prayer for dead and dying,

Oh Buddhas and Bodhisattvas abiding in all directions,
Endowed with great compassion,
Endowed with foreknowledge,
Endowed with divine eye,
Endowed with love,
Affording protection to sentient beings,
Please come forth through the power of your great compassion,
Please accept these offerings, both actually presented and mentally created.

Oh Compassionate Ones, you who possess
The wisdom of understanding,
The love of compassion,
The power of doing divine deeds,
And of protecting in incomprehensible measure,
James is passing from this world to the next,
Heis taking a great leap,
The light of this world has faded for him,
He has entered solitude with their karmic forces,
He has gone into a vast silence,
He is borne away by the great ocean of birth and death ..…

Oh Compassionate Ones, protect James, who is defenceless. Be to him like a mother and father.

Oh Compassionate Ones, let not the force of your compassion be weak, but aid them.

Let James not go into the miserable states of existence.

Forget not your ancient vows.

I read him the 23rd psalm.  I spoke sweet nothings, yet everythings, into his ear.  I also put on our song, took one hand in mine, put the other on his shoulder and we danced, one last dance. http://youtu.be/qQ-15YIvH5Y

His brother Mike arrived around 8pm and I was able to get the first solid sleep in days, knowing Mike was keeping vigil.  I fell asleep to the sound of him telling Jim stories, sharing memories.  I was gently wakened as my brother-in-law told me that our son, Bobby and his wife, Melinda, had arrived, close to midnight.  We held vigil in shifts throughout that long night.  Gratefully Jim kept fighting and was there for them.

In the morning, I shut everyone out of the room and with the sun streaming in and Keith Urban singing gently through my phone, I had the honor or bathing my husband.  It was incredibly intimate, sad, beautiful thing.

At 10 am we gathered at his bedside and had the ventilator tube removed.  It's is a very managed process where Jim felt no panic or pain.  Mike, Bobby, Melinda, Mom, Bonnie and Linda were there with us.  We were able to say goodbye, knowing James could hear us as we lifted him up. From Pittsburg , PA, my brother David said a prayer for him and sat vigil with us, via my phone.  

James' was a life well lived.