Life Challenges

People Tell Their Stories:
Death and Dying

Hospice Chronicle Jerry Terranova

Four days around Christmas 1990 spent with a friend in his last days

December 23 (day 1)

He's lying over there on the bed, his hands crossed over his heart, dying, I guess.

I'm over here in this chair, my legs stretched out, hand over my heart, living, I guess.

I'm here to be with him.

He is my friend.

I'd only met him 3 months ago, here at the hospice, but I knew right away that he would be one that I wou1d walk all the way with because he had touched my heart so swiftly with his elegance and grace--a princely manner--refinement of character, great respect for other people. He was always clear and lucid, always told the truth. So it was so easy to love him so quickly. Though his condition was called "terminal," I, as always, expected him to live forever. And one day, all at once, he said "God is letting me live just long enough to see how life should be lived" But now it seemed at last he is dying, and I am there dying with him.

The atmosphere in this room is awesome.

He's been given two morphine shots today, and they say he's hallucinating, but he makes sense to me.

He awoke, for the first time, and I got up from my chair to see to him. He said there was a woman in the room, her back to him. I thought she might have some loving message for him, so I asked him what she was saying. He said, "She's saying that the cops are stealing all the cars." Then he went back to sleep.

I went back to my chair, dozing slightly. I felt myself beginning to melt--a dream come true--old boundaries dissolving, the petty crap returning to the nothingness from which it sprang.

He awakens again, and I go over to him, and he said, "I better go get them quick; they're leaving." I said, "Who?" and he said, "The hula dancers," and he looked so happy. He fell off again, and I went back to my chair. He awoke a third time with a start. He thought I had left. He was so happy that I was still here. I don't think I've ever seen anyone happier than right now. He and I. As I sat on the edge of the bed, holding that spot on his neck with my hand as I usually do, I looked at him, and he looked like a little boy. And at that precise moment he said to me, "You look like a little boy." We both had been stripped down and we both had been lit up. There was a long pause, then we both beamed, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone more peaceful as he. looked in that instant. We both just beamed in Love until he said out of nowhere, "I will never forget this moment, " and I cried and cried and cried because I know he said it for me, too. We were one in an instant, one in an instant of love.

He dozed off again, and I went downstairs, leaving the concentrated energy and silence of his room, and entering the bright, fluorescent lights of the hallway. Downstairs for a beverage. In the living room, life was going on full blast. So full and happy and noisy. Johnny Mathis singing, his Christmas record on the turntable, and laughter. I laughed too. And everyone was making Christmas cookies. Stars and hearts and reindeer and santas. All together. The staff and the patients, the residents and visitors, the living and the dying.

December 23 (Day 1)

He's sleeping a lot, saying little. I'm here, keeping vigil again.

Two times his eyes opened wide, his voice strong and coherent.

Once while I was trying to feed him and he couldn't eat, he said, so strongly, "We have more important things to talk about." And I said, "I'm game," and I was eager, but he fell off again.

Later, even more startling and direct, he said, "You know that's happening here, don't you" and I said, softly, "Yes, I think I do."

So, I'm here now, and I've practically climbed in the bed with him; he strongly motioned me back after I'd tried to go to my seat. I'm just here, now.

It's silent in the room and dark outside. He's very still most of the time. His friend on the stairs told me, "he' knows what's happening and he's not afraid to die. He just doesn't want the pain to get any worse."

To be "conscious" that you're dying.. .that's something to ponder.

His eyes opened again. I asked him what he was thinking about and he said, "Electrodines," and I said, "I don't know what that is, and he said, rather sharply, "I don't know either!"

He awoke at 5:30 in the morning, making sounds. I got up and went over to the bed, sat beside him, held his hand. He said, "Pull some plugs for me, please." I said, "There are no plugs to pull." He smiled, almost laughed. He thought he saw a woman in the room and tried to get up to talk to her. "Madam.. ." he said, but she wouldn't tell him her name. I said, "She's here to help you. They're all here to help you." And he fell back to sleep, and I went back to my bed.

We both got up around 7:30 A. He asked for some water, and for some help in urinating.

Frail, frail body.

I tried to help move him, to shift his weight, because of the bedsores, and together we did it. Some more medication, then he fell off for a few moments. He later woke up saying, "I want to change faster" and he I knew what he meant.

I went downstairs to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and felt all of it inside me; tears, helplessness, and his suffering.. .the whole ordeal. That will all have to wait.

December 24 (day 2)

He's suffering now.

Grimaces of pain on his face, punctured by a beatific smile of peaceful surrender.

"Give me the strength," was his cry. He said it four times.

Then later he said, "I don't care anymore, it's not important." And I mumbled some mumbo jumbo about letting go --intolerably superficial--but anything I'd say under these circumstances would sound that way.

I'm here now more fully with him. I feel my heart opening, and it hurts and my whole chest area burns and I keep crying and I don't know why anymore, not for me, not for him, maybe just for the passing.

Tears by his bed, helpless prayers. -

Please don't let him suffer.

Christmas Morning, 6:00 a.m. (day 3)

He awoke at 3:00 am. to pee. He sat up and then he stood up for the first time in days, and it was awesome. I saw his whole body, that racked body full length, exposed and so frail. That he had the strength to stand up was a miracle.

Then he called out for Jesus several times.

But his death--Real Death--seems so far away, though it's right here in the room.

But you can only see it when you back away, and you say, "Oh, yes. He's dying." But up close, it's not that simple. He's just here, living, suspended--you can't see his approach to death. You only see the living. All the sleeping, and the hallucinations, and the spitting, and the sighing, and the grimacing, and the radiant child-like smiles.., it's all life. And you want to look behind his eyes and say, "What's going on in there? How long do you think this will take? Are you close? What's it like?"

December 26 (Day 4)

I got here around 10:30 PM.

His breathing is so sporadic, and fluid-filled. . . long gaps between breaths, so much mucous. His coughing is his breathing, with long gaps between in which you could swear he had stopped breathing.

I'm mad now, and I don't know why. Because of his suffering.

The stench in the room when they changed his diaper, and how much I love him, and how you'll never be able to express what kind of love and how deep or what makes me stick around a full wee...and I don't know why I'm doing this and that look in his eyes so distant, and the grimacing pain when they had to move him and how much I love him and how I just keep holding his hand and telling him it's all right and how all the platitudes about death don't get you anywhere, but you try to say something.

And how it's just me and him and his halo in a dimly lit room, just the night light that I bought for him, and his fitful breathing and your helplessness. And how the door keeps flying open spontaneously at will bringing another staff member in, bringing in the bright fluorescent light from the hall, that artificial light of the rest of the world, penetrating your whole world with this person you tend to, and the little things become so precious. You wipe the crust from his lips, tenderly, you wipe his forehead--clean, white, wet washcloth against his black, withering skin (the corrupt body, he called it once.). And you feed him water through a syringe and you talk from time to time, say anything, to penetrate the awesome, horrible helplessness and the silence. Your skin saying "I love you" with a helplessness, and terror and force that you didn't think was in you. And you know in time when everything settles that it will be all right, and you'll be all right too. Maybe now, maybe when this is all over, and that calmness fills the air for a moment and then the turbulent mind storms again, "planning" the moment of his death, how you'll react.. .how ludicrous, as if you have any control... .will it be fitful, peaceful, when it actually comes, what will you do next, planning the rest of your life when you haven't yet fully met this moment. And I cry from time to time in his presence and it's ok, and you don't know why you're crying, no simple judgment, loss, just the awful magnitude of what's happening, and how you're supposed to play a role in it, and you can't for the life of you figure out how to play it.

Then they barged into he room, and thank god, they did because the unearthly sound of his gasping---for interminable

amounts of time--till I finally saw a clock--two hours had passed. It reminded me of when he had more consciousness--was it tonight or two days ago?--when he awoke he always asked what time it was, like something to grip. But they barged in and the next thing I remember is that they said they were going to make him the A#l priority of everyone there and that brought real relief because I thought I was totally alone in this, but I was only so alone; there were actual things the could do to ease his pain, and that eased my helplessness. I really thought there was nothing that could be done for him. They said they were going to suction out his lungs and put him on oxygen to help his breathing and the knowledge that these people really cared for him comforted me and I knew then by extension that they cared for me too. I knew it was all right for me to leave the room. I went to the living room and ate a lot and I couldn't believe I was doing that. But I wanted that tuna fish sandwich someone had offered me earlier now SO BAD, right now, like it was denied me, and I reclaimed it. I love tuna fish; it always reminds me of summer and happiness and boyhood and good fridays. I ate it hungrily. I guess this was all round two in the morning, and I just sat downstairs while they tended to him. While there I saw the guy who administers the morphine and asked him if this might be my friend's last night. I didn't want to ask in the room because it seemed so immodest, disrespectful, to talk about someone's death in their presence--no matter how near they were to it, or how far away they were from the sound of your voice--to talk about it in front of them is like sealing their fate. So I told him about the breathing and he told me what to make of it. Then he wiped the tear from my eye, tending to me in that instant so tenderly.

Then I went back to the room and got in my roll-away bed, never thinking I'd sleep. I rolled the bed close to his, and I just held his hand while we both were in our beds. But I did sleep for awhile and I awoke to the presence of someone else in the room. It was one of the staff. He said some feeling told him to check in on my friend at that moment and he did. He told me that this was probably his last few breaths, and then he left the room. I just stood next to him stroking his cheek, doing what I normally do. Oh, those eyes of his--open, glaring, gazing far off, unreachable, unimpeachable-- he was on his side, and I was hyper-aware of witnessing someone's last few breaths on earth. I stood there, frozen, just watching. And then, sure enough, he just did it; the time came, and he took his last breath and he was done; all done with all of it. He looked no different the moment after, felt no different, yet everything was supposed to be different because now he was supposed to be "dead."

I went back to the living room, sat there, dazed, some dumb elvis movie on the tv, it was round 4:00 am.. A hospice worker had a few "next-of-kin" type questions for me. Then I went home, climbed into bed, asked for comfort, and I do believe he came to me--to comfort me at my bedside--to tell me he was all right. He touched my left side with some kind of wand, and that dissolved my tears in light, and I fell asleep.

Epilogue: December 27 (day 5) morning

I thought I had encountered the loss, but there' so much more there, residing in the shadows, I still see your face pressed up against the pillow case, tubes coming from your nose, your eyes open but vacant, and no matter how many times I say to myself, you've gone on to something better, it still hurts to know you're not here anymore.

Where does the strength come from to keep mourning, grieving, accepting the loss, and going on--making the loss count for something, turning it into gain somehow so that, when all is said and one, now one will have died in vain.

It seems impossible today to tally the loss; for it's beyond the inner circle--ever widening circles--I'm at a loss to say anymore. Don't want to feel any deeper than I do right now, for I'll lose my fight, determination and drive. I'll get lost in the loss. There's later, and tomorrow, and tomorrow and later to take it all the way down--to let it take me all the way down--for I'm sure there's a me that's lost too in all of this. But I can't for the life of me right now figure out who it is that's passing.

My arm, writing hand, seems so weak right now. No blood or life or will in it, like it doesn't want to record anymore. It is tired of bearing witness to this spectacle, tired of trying to bring order and peace to a war-torn land--inner and outer landscapes--wants to die too--hide, check out.

But something always comes, resurrects itself, something new to hang onto. So, I'll just wait for the next wave of grace to carry me through, renew me, strengthen my voice and help me make all this count for something.

Jerry Terranova is a long-term aids survivor, writer and teacher, who died in June 1998. We love you, Jerry, and remember and honor you for your love, wisdom, courage, generosity, and deep, passionate caring. You touch our lives profoundly.

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