#154 Young

I know the exact moment when I became old. I read somewhere a definition that says that an old person is someone for whom memories are more important than future plans. By this definition, I became old on the 13th of August at 0:16 hours.

That last evening, when Janne was unconscious, I spent it by her side. I somehow knew it would be her last. When the boys had left that afternoon from the hospital, I told them that I thought that mom was going to die that night. She was still breathing, but not moving anymore.

A nurse spoke with me. She told me that Janne was a strong woman and that her body was still fighting to stay alive. However, she said the level of morphine she had was not enough. If they didn’t raise it, it would not be pretty for me. She also added that Janne was not suffering, but it was more about what I’d see. She asked for my approval to raise the level of morphine. I said yes.

When I was alone with her, I played some music. This whole month of visits at the hospital, I had been carrying a speaker with me. I thought this was the time to use it: I had read that hearing is that last sense we lose. I started playing songs that reminded me of her starting at 7:35 p.m. I didn’t play her favorites, because she never told me which ones they were. But I had a good memory of the ones when she had made a small comment, a question, something that meant that they were special for her. Or simply, I wanted to play the ones that I had related to her.

For the next three hours that room was full of music. Sometimes, I dared to sing some of them. “The Phone Book” by Editors had the verses, “stay with me / keep with me” which were an emotional plea and a sad farewell. Pink Turns Blue’s “You Still Mean Too Much For Me” begs by singing, “give me a reason why you had to go”. “The End Is Nigh” by Bell X1 says, “whose eyes would I meet in the final throes? / And say it was good to be human / To be a human with you here”. I saved all those songs in a playlist and in my heart.

In between, I was constantly telling Janne what she meant to me, what she did for me and how much I loved her.

After two hours, I started playing the same playlist from the beginning. I hadn’t noticed until a couple of days ago that the music played for almost 3 hours. At 10:34 p.m., I played the last song which turned out to be Kisses by Slowdive (what a fateful song). Then I stopped.

The nurse came to check Janne and left. I was exhausted. My average sleep per night was less than four hours. I needed to close my eyes for a bit. At 11 p.m., I said good night to Janne and went to bed.

I woke up without any prompt at 0:16. I looked at Janne and she wasn’t moving. I stood up and walked to her side. Her face and her hands were still warm, but she was not breathing anymore. I went out to look for the nurse. She checked her and went to look for a doctor. The doctor came a few minutes later and confirmed that Janne had died. They both gave their condolences to me.

The nurse asked what I wanted to do. Would I like to go home and come back to get Janne’s stuff while they would take her away? Or did I want to sleep a bit more and then go? I chose to stay.

The mortuary assistant came around 2 a.m. and took her away. He just left her Joy Division t-shirt that she wore until the end. I packed everything, went to sleep and woke up at 6 a.m. I picked up the closest friend of ours during that time, went to give the news to relatives and then went to wake up the boys to tell them. They were expecting it.

So this is how I became old. This happened exactly six months ago.

Age is relative. When I met Janne, I was also old. When I was 12, a relative complained that I behaved already like an old person. Not only that, I always felt that there was no future for me and was just treading blindly through life.

As soon as I saw Janne for the first time, I felt a bright spark inside of me. I cannot explain otherwise the crazy sequence of events I caused to have her by my side after all these years.

What I have reflected on these days is that by sharing my life with Janne, I became a more youthful soul. I was able to free myself from mental models and old habits that were imprisoning me. I ended up discovering what I’m made of. Twenty years of being next to her left their mark. I will not go back to be this old guy permanently. I still have two boys to make me feel the spark again when I look at their future.

I’ll become young again.

Six months is a momentous occasion for me. I promised myself that I wouldn’t take any harsh decision until then. My head hasn’t been clear as I have been dealing with the shock. I have an idea of what I want, but perhaps I get confusing signals.

I realize now that my thinking is much more solid after all this time. It is not that I am free of hard moments. In fact, I have had harder moments in the last month than right after Janne died. It’s like the natural anesthetics of my soul have worn away. I can now feel the real pain. At the same time, I have a better idea of what I should do.

I recently re-established contact with one of the most influential people in my life. She was my mentor since the first day I set foot in Montana in 1996. She didn’t know of what happened until a few weeks ago. We agreed that I would be sending her all the posts I’ve written by mail, one by one. This forces me to read them again. At first, I don’t recognize myself in there. Those posts are so raw and beautiful that it’s hard for me to believe that I wrote them. But I noticed also that there has been a tiny bit of progress in our lives.

This made me conclude that the old-young dichotomy in my life is something I can get a handle of. I still feel old without Janne, but I know now that I will look at the future and be a youthful soul again. My boys deserve it. I deserve it.

Janne, life took you away so early, perhaps, so you never had to feel old. You’ll be young forever and no one will take this away from you.