The Reunion
The doorbell rang––the first in a very long night. As my youngest brother, Sam, opened it, a chorus of “Trick-or-treat!” greeted us. I wondered what the pint-sized Disney and Marvel characters would think of the scene beyond the candy––the furniture arranged around the hospital bed in the middle of the room, the white-haired woman with ashen skin laying in it, her eyelids drawn closed. But the children’s attention remained riveted by the sugary prize for walking miles around the residential Modesto neighborhood in California’s central valley.
I glanced at the clock and wondered how much longer Mom would hold on. Her caregiver had warned us, “I bet she goes on Halloween. Your dad is going to come and take her out for their anniversary.” All the hospice nurses agreed; patients often waited until a special day if one neared.
Mom and Dad never intentionally chose Halloween to get married; it happened to land on the Saturday in the middle of their two-week vacation from work––Dad as a steelworker and Mom, a registered nurse. It wasn’t until Mom’s teenage nephew asked when he could go trick-or-treating that she remembered the holiday. Wedding plans so consumed her that the October 31st significance flew under her radar. And now, 53 years later, she lay at the end of her story, all three of her kids gathered around her bed, waiting.
Between doorbells, we shared memories. Our parents were studies in contrast. My brother, Greg, often described them by saying, “Imagine June Cleaver, from Leave It to Beaver marrying Archie Bunker from
All in the Family. Those are my parents.”
We joked about their infamous parental noises we sometimes tried to imitate. For Dad, it was a breathy, “Aah”––a note of resigned annoyance growing to utter disgust as the decibels rose. Mom’s noise, however, was a short, throaty “Ha!” the sheer merriment of the moment stealing her voice, cut off as if she burst into laughter at the wrong time.
Mom was the one who wanted kids; Dad had begrudgingly agreed. As a divorcee in the 1950s, he didn’t have much bargaining room. So when Mom’s body temperature dictated tonight’s the night, Dad complied.
They spent their first anniversary in the maternity ward. On that eventful day, Dad confessed to Mom that he had fallen in love with another woman… me. From the moment he held his newborn daughter, he touted the virtues of family. Something in him shifted with his new title; he discovered he dug being a dad.
Mom was the one who looked up after their third child and said, “I think I’m getting too old for this.”
Throughout childhood, Halloween became my special day with little mention of their wedding. My birthday party, presents, dinner and an evening of trick-or-treating took priority. But as we matured, their anniversary stepped into the foreground, especially for the decade breakers.
With another doorbell ring, I looked up to watch Greg answer and greet the kids. He was quite chipper chatting with them; we all were. You’d never guess we were on a deathwatch.
We had hauled Mom’s bed into the front room when it became clear she wouldn’t get up again. That way, she could see all the neighborhood action. Over the past five years, she had gazed through those front windows toward Greg’s home, watching her only biological grandchild grow up.
Mom and Dad had drummed their fingers into blunted lumps waiting for the next generation, especially Dad. Periodically, he would demand, “Where are my grandchildren?! I’m not getting any younger, you know,” and look at us with the raised brows of expectation.
“Oh, Bob! Leave them alone,” Mom would answer. “Let them find the right person first.” But deep down, she, too, wanted to cuddle and spoil the next generation.
When Jamie was born, they took turns gazing into the eyes of this brand new life, their faces softening as they stroked her flawless hand with their timeworn skin. They attended every event in her life: baptism, birthdays, competitions, graduations, every holiday, reveling in that fractional immortality.
It was there, across the street from the next generation, that Mom had gabbed with friends or applauded the kids who played in the cul-de-sac. It was there that she acquired the tools of the aging: first a walker, then a wheelchair, and finally a Hoyer lift and hospital bed. And it was there that she dropped into a coma a couple of days ago, her skin growing that pallid color and her breathing growing sporadic. It wouldn’t be long.
# # #
When the doorbell rang again, I answered it. After filling the bags held by outstretched arms, I turned to see Mom propped on her side, still holding on like she waited for something.
We all knew Dad would go first. Eventually, the emphysema grew relentless, exacerbated by work’s noxious fumes and a smoking habit. The first time he landed in the hospital needing life support, he flatly refused. He was done with the shortness of breath. Although he drew a large question mark over the idea of an afterlife, he welcomed death, curious, I guess, wanting to know first hand if the stories were true. Every time a doctor asked how he faired, he replied with the same barking demand, “I want to die! Why is this taking so damn long?”
When a new doctor rotated on duty, she blinked hard at his bluntness and answered, “Well, we can disconnect your IV and take you off the oxygen. Would you like that?”
For only a second he hesitated and then said emphatically, “Yeah!”
Minutes later a nurse disconnected his equipment. After that, his breathing developed a rattle, and he tossed and turned with discomfort, whispering, “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
We looked at each other and then affirmed that this was his last hurdle; after he cleared it, we thought he’d be pleasantly surprised. We repeated what each had told him for the past four days in our own time and way: “I love you, and I’ll miss you, but it’s okay to go.”
The rattle worsened and he breathed, “I don’t know...”
That’s when our story started. We described a party gathering on the other side, peopled with everyone who had already passed over. While we had lots of visitors saying goodbye in this room, another group gathered to welcome him. We took turns imagining what awaited him on that mysterious other side––a reunion with his parents, with uncles and aunts, with his hunting buddy, each of us adding to the collage of images while a froth of blood foamed at his mouth and his body gasped for air.
We kept at it while I watched his carotid pulse stop periodically, just to start again. The same happened with his breathing. When I noticed his eyes glazed, I said, “I don’t know if he’s here anymore. Look at his eyes.”
“I think you might be right,” Greg replied, but just in case, he continued talking him through this. We kept it up, affirming our love, telling him it was time to go; it was the other side’s turn.
Finally his pulse stopped, and his lungs gave up their work. We sat in silence until someone said, “Well, he should be arriving at his party about now.”
“And won’t he be surprised,” Mom added, “to turn around and find us following right behind... because there’s no such thing as time in heaven.”
As we talked about how strange life would be without him, I suddenly felt something behind us and turned around to see... nothing, just the sunlight pouring through the window.