Death

I've been fixated on the concept of death lately, and have been unable to shake the sadness associated with that train of thought. 
This past week I was pulled from my home cardiac floor to work on the general medical-surgical floor each night.  The hospital has been positively packed lately, and since most of the nurses working night shift with me now are relatively new, I'm the only one who could be pulled to another floor.  The patients on the med-surg floor tend to be less critical, so even when it's a busy night with four nursing students pulling me in all directions, it's still less tense than the cardiac floor.

There was a man, who was not one of "my patients" but who I was often in the room helping to turn and reposition in bed.  He was actively dying, and we were to provide only comfort care.  I don't know his diagnosis, or how old he was, or if he had any family.  I don't know what he did for a living, if he'd ever served in a war, or if he enjoyed reading mysteries.  All I know of him is what I saw over those three nights. 

He was unresponsive verbally, his eyes open and staring intently at the ceiling.  His breathing consisted of agonal, irregular gasps for air.  He looked like a fish out of water.  He grimaced with pain as we turned him from side to side every two hours in an effort to prevent his skin from breaking down, despite the slow, steady drip of morphine going in through his IV line.  His extremities were swollen and leaking fluid, a sure sign of his cardiovascular system shutting down.  His diaper was dry all night, evidence that his kidneys were failing.

Despite all of this, he was fighting the inevitable with everything he had.  He had been in this state for four days, hanging on and struggling to keep breathing as his body failed him.  Each time I entered his room to assist his nurse with a task, what I really wanted to do was hold his hand and sing quietly to him, tell him to let go, to let himself merge with the ebb and flow.  I wanted to tell him not to be afraid.  But I couldn't.  I couldn't let myself be that vulnerable at my job.  So I completed the tasks, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, bathed his sweaty brow, and went on about my business.  Days later now, I wonder if he's gone yet.  I wonder if telling him not to be afraid would have been hypocritical of me, given my own fear of death. 

I suppose it's not death that I fear, neccessarily.  More than anything, I'm afraid of losing the people I love, most specifically, my Honeybunch.  I fear that these few transient years we have together are all we get... that either there is no afterlife at all, or that in the lives following this one, we'll never find one another again.  Will we be sister bees in a hive one time around?  Will we be oak trees, growing side by side with our branches reaching out toward one another?  I hope so.  The idea of returning to an existence without him is unbearable.  We've agreed to die on the same day, but obviously we don't exactly have control over whether we can keep that promise. 

I'm sure that man had someone he loved.  Maybe they moved on before him, but I doubt it.  He was clinging to life so desperately that I imagine his love was still quite alive.  Maybe he feared the same thing that I do, and felt that the painful hours he was holding onto were worth it, to see his love for another day.  I just have to hope that before I find myself in his situation, that I've found more peace with the idea of dying than I have now.  I just have to hope that I have the many, many years of life with those I love that I think I will need to find that peace.

So for now, I bury the dying animals, comfort the dying people, and cry while I listen to Iron and Wine.


She says wake up, it's no use pretending
I'll keep stealing, breathing her
Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open
Naked as we came
One will spread our
Ashes round the yard
She says if I leave before you darling
Don't you waste me in the ground
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open

Naked as we came

One will spread our
Ashes round the yard