Passage

[I watched my grandmother die last night.]

[As I wrote, I was transfixed by the election coverage. It was like watching that proverbial train wreck from you which can't avert your eyes. At about 11:30, I'd just about decided I'd had enough, and was casually perusing the Bay Guardian's local live coverage for something that would encourage me not to move to Canada like Jhames. I realized that the phone hadn't rung all night; John usually calls me a couple of times from his temp night shift nightmare, and I hadn't heard from him. Ah, the DSL-deprved roommate's been online again.]

[After successfully dislodging Bart's Bimbo du Jour from the Vorld Vide Veb, I checked messages. Mom, 11:15: "Bill, we're at the hospital. The doctors tell us Grandma has less than 24 hours to live. It doesn't seem like you're home, but if you get this message, it sure would be nice if you could up to Sonoma tonight. I'm trying to get a hold of Kate to arrange a ride. Please call this cell number, (707) xxx-xxxx when you get this message."]

[Oh, SHIT. Der Tag. I zapped a message to Leah, my only friend with a car, then ran up to the Friendly Neighborhood Cabaret, hoping she'd be there. She was, as was John, who was having an post-travail cocktail. I was zooming over a densely fog-laden Golden Gate Bridge in Leah's LeBaron twenty minutes later, wishing I hadn't bleached my hair. Grandma hates my hair blond. (Freak, I know.)]

[Sonoma Valley Hospital. Scene of my sister's birth, my appendectomy, Dad's "delicate surgery," Mom's hysterectomy. (Until last night, the most hellish hours I'd passed were during that long, long day.) As I walked up to the after-hours Emergency entrance, I pondered how this damned place sure is chock full o' milestones for my family. Kate had already arrived, Mom and Dad were there, and there was Jean, drifting in and out of an iffy consciousness, drowning on her own bodily fluids.]

[Emphysema: seventy year of smoking. Seventy. Her doctor made her quit at age 81, she lit one last cigarette, and claimed never to have another craving. An enlarged heart that's still in some record book at Stanford Medical. Anemia. Arrythmia. 84 years of sedentary living, of which she enjoyed more than anyone expects to. This skeletal remains, struggling for breath, is the same personification of joy who, when I was younger than I can even remember, opened her arms like Rosalind Russell and (might as well have) said, "But, darling! I'm your Auntie Mame!"]

[A sympathetic, extremely professional night nurse explains congestive heart failure to me as she doses Grandma with more morphine. The narcotic enables her to relax, take in more oxygen thru the drowning, and wake up. It was up to all of us to explain to her what was happening - last thing she remembered, she'd been in her bed at the skilled nursing facility where she'd been undergoing rest and therapy from her latest bout of anemia. Mom had visited her that afternoon, and they'd made plans to take Grandma home the next day. That would have been today.]

[Mom. An only child. A jock girl in the 50s when girls weren't supposed to be jocks, supported in all her endeavors by the girliest of mothers. (When Grandma grasped the stem of a sidecar glass, you knew you were dealing with a lady.) This was Mom's best friend, her only constant since her Dad died in '58. This was also the woman who was driving Mom crazy with guilt at her inability to meet ad hoc her mounting medical care needs.]

[I sat next to the bed and held Grandma's withered hand as the morphine let her wake up, and as she realized what was happening. "I can't quite believe it," she wheezed. "Can they actually do this to you." What do you say to that? "But I didn't get to finish my book!" Oh, yeah, Jean. Rage against the dying of the reading lamp.]

[We got to reiterate that we loved her, and she got that "well, I never doubted that!" expression. She finally began to accept what was happening, and sank into a peaceful lethargy. She seemed to dream, and we four talked of things that she would be interested in, not knowing what she could still hear. Eventually I took Dad home, since he was falling asleep in his chair.]

[At about 4:20, Kate, Mom and I were discussing Kate and Mike's upcoming trip to Africa, when the gasping started again. We looked at the monitor and saw the line of her heart activity slowly begin to level out. Judy came in and did her diagnostic bit, and nodded to us. We were transfixed, unable to move, as Judy stroked Grandma's hair and upper chest, saying, "It's OK, sweetie, you can let go." Kate and I stood up and held Mom as she cried. The lines on that monitor leveled, and she was gone.]

[Gone. That twisted, mottled-skin, matted-gray-hair matter on the hospital bed was no longer Jean Parkin Yarnell Petersen, born Feb. 1, 1918, Barnsley, Yorks., died 4:30 a.m., Nov. 6, 2002, Sonoma, Calif. We looked away immediately, and Mom slowly got it together to do the few bits of paperwork required of her.]

[The rest of today can be characterized as taking care of business, with plenty of time to talk. I drove Leah's car back to the city, and John and I took Golden Gate Transit back up to Sonoma County. We sat at home most of the day, napping, calling people, giving the occasional hug. It didn't feel like a weekday at all; it felt like a Sabbath, but an especially busy one. The lady at the funeral parlor (Sonoma's only one) was businesslike and kind, complimenting me on the short appreciation I wrote. It may go in the local paper; Grandma was well-known and loved around town. How could I tell anyone I'd been composing it in my head for months?]

[After a Mexican dinner with plenty of margaritas at the same joint we'd repaired to after Mom's surgery, Kate gave John and me a ride home. (S.F.-Sonoma-S.F.-Sonoma-S.F. in twenty hours.) And now, the first rainstorm since May is tapping the bedroom window.]

[Thanks for the love, Jean. Thanks for the belief, the skepticism, the support, the protection, the acceptance when no one thought you would, the taste, the adventure, and most of all, the joie de vivre you always personified for me.]

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