Hospital Bed

When I did this before it was different, it was quick; although, it didn’t feel that way at the time. But it was hurried. This is slower, a lot of waiting. The last time we went from diagnosis to radiation to hospital to hospice to funeral home. Of course there were stops between - last lunches at favorite restaurants, and a baby shower for a grandson she only caught a fleeting, drug induced glimpse of – but by standards, it was quick. Five months from diagnosis to death.

Of course she had to have known earlier, but not one to ruin a Christmas, she kept this news to herself. But this time is different. There is no diagnosis. Is old age a diagnosis? There is no textbook chronology to follow. We wait, we hope, we realize how ridiculous that appears at 103. What does it really mean to die of old age? We don’t know.

The latest development – a hospital bed; that was our joke thirty-five years ago, “When I get old, don’t put me in a nursing home. Set up a hospital bed right here in the dining room, so I can still keep tabs on my neighbors." The bed came today – but it is not in the dining room, macular degeneration prevents you from seeing the neighbors' comings and goings. (Probably a good thing, since child number 10 is now your neighbor – sorry, Steve.)

I didn’t stay to see how you’d take it - the hospital bed. The truth of the bed in your room replacing the bed you and Lewis shared, replacing the bed that you have slept in for fifty-plus years, was more than I could bear. Instead of accepting what the hospital bed means, I choose to dwell on your sense of humor. When asked this morning, by Mary, “How do you feel today, Mother?” You replied, “I feel like I was called for, but wouldn’t do.”

That’s the spirit. That’s my Big Red. That’s what I choose to accept. No hospital bed can diminish that spirit.