Saying goodbye
We used to be able to help her; now it seems there’s nothing left to do but wait. We enter Sylv’s room and she’s floating in and out of awareness. A few weeks ago, she greeted her parade of visitors cheerfully, introducing strangers as if presiding over a cocktail party. We’d stand on either side of her bed, nodding politely, while she set us at ease: “Krista, this is Joy, she teaches ballet. Joy, I worked with Krista.” She could almost make us forgot why we were there. Today, it takes her a few minutes to focus. She has medication shunts in her arms. Under each is a handwritten label on yellow sticky tape, signposts of her journey toward death: Gravol, Dilaudid, Decadron. She’s wearing bright blue pyjamas; her legs, rendered useless by the tumours on her spine, are splayed out in front of her. She looks like a cancer-afflicted Gumby. I don’t want to remember her this way.
We visit again and, barely lucid, she bursts into tears asking for “the face, the face, I want the face.” We finally realize she wants the nurse. The nurse brings her water in an adult version of a kid’s sippy cup. Sylvia can barely lift it to her mouth. She tries to move out of the bed but pain and her paralyzed legs stop her. She calls for her boyfriend, distressed. We tell her he’ll be back soon. Suddenly imperious, she tells us that when he arrives there’ll be “ice cream for everyone.” Later she comments that the seamstress never did finish her dress. We take it out and show it to her. She touches the silk, satisfied, and says, “It’s beautiful.”
The next day, a sign on her door says “Do not disturb.” The nurse tells us that Sylvia sent everyone away, that she is “processing things.” I know that she’s decided to die. A friend calls me two nights later to tell me that Sylvia has slipped into a coma. I stay up all night while the child, the adult and the writer have a painful debate about whether to visit one last time. I guess the child wins because I decide not to go. The writer makes a half-hearted pitch but then relents — she has plenty of notes already.
Where to turn in times of trouble: The virtual hospice and Grief at 2 a.m.
This article originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of More
