You may recall that I had been visiting my 84 year old friend during all of this. Well, Nancy’s life ended last night and it was on her terms. If we all could be as ready as she was and have our wishes known and followed as hers were, I, for one, would be very grateful.
I visited Nancy after shaving my head. We were having tea and she looked at me after a steaming sip and reached out to touch my head. “You have a perfect skull, you know, not everyone could pull this off.” Some days when I came to visit she was still in bed, and one time in particular I leaned over her and said “Good morning Nancy!” and after she opened her eyes and realized who had the nerve to interrupt her slumber, she smiled as I took off my hat. She raised her hands to rub the stubble, eyes closed, and said “my friend with the perfect skull”.
Our visits were not particularly long nor were they as numerous as I would have liked them to be, but they certainly were intentional. Every gesture and word was intentional. Nancy sometimes struggled to get her brilliant thoughts from her brain to her mouth and sometimes it just took time to accomplish the task. There was no haste to make waste. I found myself listening intently almost so hard that I got caught up in the visual of her mouth trying to form the words and would miss the point. She was very forgiving anyway, so when I said something in return that was totally out of the ball park, she moved right along with me. Bless her heart. She was incredibly thoughtful and supportive of my ups and downs during my own treatments, and certainly saw me at vulnerable moments.
Nancy lived with her daughter, my dear friend S, since well before I was diagnosed last summer. I had been granted cart blanche with regard to visits. This was such a gift to me. S was very generous in sharing her mom. In addition to what I’ve already shared, there are three specific memories from those visits that I want to write about. I had the priviledge of not only visiting, but taking care of Nancy for a couple hours one day. We took care of her needs, had our tea and conversation, and decided to get outside. It was a beautiful day. We wheeled her chair out the long dirt driveway and one of the cats jumped right up on Nancy’s lap, muddy paws and all. She loved it. When we got back to the house, she said that she needed exercise, so we took the walker out and made a lap around a small area in the driveway. At this point in Nancy’s life, walking was a chore as she could only really move her feet maybe 4 inches with each deliberate step. She made fun of herself as she walked along because she had to concentrate so hard that she lost track of the position of her body, and would find herself bent at a 90 degree angle before too long. Well, we were walking up the ramp, Nancy was at about a 98 degree angle and stopped for a very long pause. She finally said “what on earth is that?” I got on my hands and knees, trying to judge the path of her sight to find whatever it was that caught her eye. I could not believe it when I saw it. In the crack of the deck board, there was a tail of a mouse, something one of the cats apparently had left as a gift. We laughed and Nancy said “OK, now, look at me. I have completely forgotten how to straighten up.”
On another occasion, I dropped by unannounced. Nancy was sitting in front of her beautiful old wooden blanket chest and was polishing it. S was guiding her hand along and they were talking and laughing. I loved seeing this because it epitomized their relationship from my perspective. S was a fierce advocate for her mom, and seemed to provide as many opportunities for her as were possible, even something that seems so simple like polishing a cherished piece of furniture. That visit Nancy was working to say something as we had tea. She was pointing to her neck and finally grabbed a gold necklace that she had on. She communicated to S that she wanted S‘s older sister to have that particular necklace. S always took note of these things, and reassured Nancy that she would be sure that her sister got the necklace.
On one of my last visits to the house, Nancy was sitting in her recliner by the window. When I pulled a chair up snuggly close and leaned over to give her a big smooch on the cheek, she said “you know you are ‘myfriendpatty’, it’s all one word and I want to be sure you know that”.
Last Sunday, S and I visited Nancy at a nursing home she was admitted to about 4 days earlier. She was sleeping when we arrived and when I greeted her I said “hey Nancy, it’s yourfriendpatty”. We had a great visit. We got her ready for the day and had breakfast. Working with S to get her ready was amazing. She knows her mom so well. She put the T in TLC. Nancy was contemplating reality and asked on several occasions if something that just happened in her mind was our experience as well. I knew from conversations with S that Nancy was ready to exit the body that was just not working any more. She’s been ready for quite some time, actually. Sitting here today, I feel very fortunate to have had that particular visit with her, only 6 days ago.
The next day S called me and told me Nancy was on her way to a Hospice house. Something had happened, and Nancy was able to give full consent for NO medical intervention. S said she was very clear with the doc that she knew that it would lead to her death.
I visited Nancy the next day at a beautiful Hospice house where the doors are wide enough to wheel hospital beds out into the gardens. Nancy was in bed, fairly sedated. When I bent over and gave her a smooch and told her that herfriendpatty was here for a visit, she opened her eyes and her breathing haulted for a moment, it seemed that she recognized that it was me. S‘s family was very kind and welcoming, even in their private grief, to make room for so many who were able to come to say goodbye. While I was there S took Nancy’s necklace out of her pocket and gave it to her sister, just like she’d promised.
The last time I saw Nancy, she was resting fairly peacefully. A friend was playing the harp for her. I held her very warm hand, stroked her hair and told her a few things I wanted her to know. Less than 24 hours later, S communicated that Nancy was finally able to make it out of the body that could no longer house her vital spirit, with her grandson reading poetry (Yeats) to her as she left. S just emailed the end of the poem:
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
