A Well Staring at the Sky: A Death Foretold — Part 5
Read Part 10: A Vampire
I take over most of the night shifts nursing my Aunt. I go to Mary’s house to sleep during the day, but I can’t sleep because Susan is dying. So I lay prone in their soft, luxurious bed and watch episodes of Sherlock. It’s the only thing that can make me laugh and distract me right now. For months afterwards, I will be unable to read books other than Sherlock mysteries and rewatch Sherlock. It’s my small comfort. A small bind that ties me to her and this moment.
Looking back, I would not give up the tragedy and the sadness that comes with nursing a sick person through the final stage of life. What my family and I went through was difficult, messy, and drama inducing. During these fragile moments, we were tired and sick with despair at losing the most important person in our lives. She was this to all of us: friend, caretaker, therapist, guide.
Impending grief makes you selfish. You think that you can negotiate with death and when you work as a nurse you think you can stave off the inevitable. You tend to act as the hero. Inhabiting your own version of the world, you don’t recognize the face of sorrow and dread on everyone else around you even though they mirror your own. During this period, my mother will remind me time and again that I am not the only one losing Susan — this is not my suffering alone. Unfortunately, the reminder of this is unnecessary and unhelpful because grief is self-indulgent and even though we shared a commonality, each of those nights I was up with Susan and each of those days I Iay prone, watching Sherlock, I knew what it was truly alone in my own version of sorrow. To this day, this cannot be shared.
We finally had to ask hospice to provide us with a nurse after a week of taking care of her. The decision was made after a particularly bad night. Shawn and I were in the house and at 3am I heard a crash come from my Aunt’s bedroom. She had fallen to the floor in a morphine stupor after having tried and failed to get up to go to the bathroom. Shawn and I tried to lift her dead weight up and back onto the bed, but we were not strong enough. We were scared and sleep deprived and I tried to reason out a plausible way to lift her. After one last try, I sat on the ground cradling Susan in my arms and while Shawn made a call to hospice so they send a nurse. After we lifted her onto the bed, the nurse cleaned her up and said someone would start coming by in the mornings and the evenings and they would send a hospital bed. She said that these were going to be Susan’s last few days.
Read Part 12: A Graduation
