I got the call just minutes after 5 pm on Thursday evening from a Senior Chief who's name I didn't hear -- call your Aunt Patti, there's a medical emergency. It took a lot of people a lot of effort to get me on a plane less than 24 hours later on a 20 hour flight departing Narita Japan to Washington Dulles to Oklahoma City. Shelia picked me up and by the time we made it to your room it was a little after 8pm on Thursday evening. I'm not sure how the math works out either, but I walked in to your room and the microcosm of nurses and doctors and machines and waiting.
I didn't recognize you. I accepted it on faith that Shelia had brought me to this room with Dad and Betty and Sandy, and that the woman lying on the bed was you. The respiratory failure, followed by cardiac failure, complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulation left you swollen to the point of bursting.
Your face looks much better today; the swelling has come down significantly and I can see your eyes and your chin now, underneath all of that bruising--the blacks and purples and reds and plums that over-saturate your skin. The respirator tube is held in place by tape across your jaw; it keeps your mouth slightly ajar. The drainage tube down your nasal passage is taped to your nose. But for these three days I held your hand, and I kissed your face, and I spoke in your ear of how, together we would get through.
You died today at 1:24 pm on a Sunday afternoon. I still held your hand as you struggled through your last breaths, fragile and broken, and I cried from the unassailable sorrow. And even though your spirit had left your body days ago, I don't want you to be gone. I want you to hold a grand baby some day, and a great grand baby, too.
Your life will be celebrated by the so many who have loved you. But I shall mourn between those fond memories.
I love you.
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