The experience of holding someone's hand while they slip from this world is a heavy one. If you had asked me years ago if I had the capacity to do what I did, what *we* did, this time last year, I would have told you there was no way I could be strong enough to handle that. To be honest, I wasn't strong enough. Had it not been for God's strength flowing through me, it would have crushed me. I know Bernice would not want us to "be sad" this time every year on account of her. She would be SO mad if she thought that's what was happening. But there will be moments of sweetness that I will forever keep tucked away in my heart. She would much prefer (and I would too) that when the month of May rolls around every year those special moments are what are remembered and not the moments that feel suffocating and heavy...
After we said goodbye to Granddaddy the first week in May last year, Jonathan and I went up to Canada with Greysen to spend some time with my parents. It was a wonderful trip! We had no idea how much we would need the rejuvenation of that vacation. We had been keeping up with Bernice's medical concerns while we were away. Her last chemo infusion had really depressed her bone marrow and her blood counts had plummeted. She could feel it too...she knew she was in need of a transfusion. So the day we were traveling back from Canada, she went up to Deaconess to get a blood transfusion per the order of her hematologist. When we got back to Dallas we were originally planning to stay in Granbury with my mom for a couple of days. We woke up the next morning, however, and we both felt like we just needed to be with Bernice. So we woke up early, packed up Greysen and our stuff, and buzzed north to Oklahoma City. When we got there, she didn't look like someone who was ill. She certainly didn't look like someone who would breathe her last breath in 2 1/2 weeks...
The next day after we arrived in OKC from Dallas, Bernice and Greysen and I were hanging out in the kitchen. The phone rang...it was the nurse from OU calling to give Bernice an update on her blood counts after the transfusion. How we were PRAYING they would be high enough that she could continue with chemotherapy. She sat in one of the kitchen chairs and I could tell in her voice that it wasn't good news. I held Greysen in my arms and stood in the kitchen doorway and I heard her say, "Oh goodness. Well that's just not what I was hoping to hear..." She was crushed. And when she hung up the phone she turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, "Even after my transfusion my counts are back down..." I will never forget that the minute those words came out of her mouth, my little 1 year old Greysen leaned out of my arms and wrapped his little arms around her neck and laid his head on her shoulder. It was such a sweet moment...
That afternoon she and I sat in the two overstuffed chairs in her den and talked for hours. It was a thing we did so very often when we were together. I can't count the number of hours we spent talking in those two chairs together. Those conversations will forever bless my heart when I remember them. I had no idea that that afternoon would be the last time I ever got to sit and talk with her in those chairs like that. A few short days later, she hardly had the strength to walk to the front of the house. I will never forget that conversation that we had that day. At one point she looked over at me and said, "I don't feel bad enough for this to be the end, but I just don't know what else they can do." Tears were welling up in her eyes...it was crushing my heart to hear those words out of her mouth. So I reached across the space between us and held her hand and I said, "Well Bernice, Jonathan and I have already decided that when he has to go back to Baltimore in June, Greysen and I are just going to stay here. And I'll be here to hold your hand through whatever heavy hitting treatment they're going to recommend. We can do this together. But if it is the end, I'll be here to hold your hand until it's all over." Goodness how the tears flowed then. And how difficult it was for me to even acknowledge that this really could be the beginning of the end. I still honestly thought we had more time! But I assured her that I would be there by her side until the bitter end. It was such a sweet moment...
For a few days after that, I pushed her up and down the long hallway in their home in a wheelchair. She hardly had the strength to even sit upright for more than a couple of minutes at a time, let alone the arduous walk from her bedroom to the front of the house. I lifted her in and out of that wheelchair, in and out of bed, in and out of her chair in the den, in and out of the car. I put her shoes on, picked out her outfits, helped her dress, handed her her jewelry. Jonathan, Charlie, Greysen and I took her to see her oncologist Dr. Landrum one last time on a Thursday afternoon at OU. When Dr. Landrum came in the room she was visibly frazzled...frantic almost. She had a list in front of her of all the drugs that had even the tiniest effect on ovarian cancer. She had marked several of them out for various reasons because they weren't options for our Bernice. But she was out of sorts...it was SO not like her. She was this stoic strictly business doctor who, in this moment, was reduced to a nervous wreck. When she finished telling us that Bernice's blood counts needed to improve before we could do another infusion, but "there are options if we can get those counts up", she looked at Bernice and said, "Can I give you a hug?" And she leaned down and wrapped her arms around Bernice and they both cried. It was such a sweet moment...
The following day was the first day I saw "the look" in her eyes. If you've ever spent time with someone who is slipping from this world, you know the look I'm talking about. It is sort of a despondent, far off look. It's pensive, resigned, and dreamy. When we took her to the hematologist, she hardly said anything. Instead she sat there in a purple shirt and her favorite travel knit maxi skirt and her black silk cap and stared off in thought as Dr. Kana'a recommended two back to back transfusions and an oral steroid to try and "wake up her marrow". We wheeled her out and into the handicapped van we had borrowed from Helen. She sat in that van with her head propped on her hand and she looked off into the distance. We took her home and put her in bed. She slept the rest of the day and most of the next. The next evening I was sitting in the bed with her while Jonathan and Charlie got dinner together in the kitchen. I was fussing over her as became my MO in those final days. I was sitting at her feet rubbing them with Midnight Path lotion while she smiled sweetly with her eyes closed. When I stood up to put the lotion away she said, "Well that was strange. I didn't know the TV was on." It wasn't. I said, "I didn't turn it on, but would you like me to?" And she said, "No sweetie, it's ok. But did you see that woman with the rosary?" It was the first moment I realized that that bedroom was filled with angels that I couldn't see. But she could. It was such a sweet moment...
We had a funny moment that night when Charlie inadvertently put on a pair of Bernice's pants to go to Braums to bring back some ice cream. It was the last time I truly heard her belly laugh. All four of us laughed until we cried and Charlie even put on a show in those cropped pants. Popping out of the closet strutting his stuff in her pants. We laughed and laughed and laughed until it literally hurt. Somewhere there is video evidence of these shenanigans. Charlie put on *his* pants and he and Jonathan went to Braums to get her a cup of German Chocolate ice cream. It was always her favorite. When they returned we all four (and Greysen) sat in their bedroom and watched family movies and looked through scrapbooks. We laughed some more and they remembered special times together and with friends and family. It was such a sweet moment...
She began slipping ever quicker after that night. I actually thought, at one point, that she would never make it to those transfusion appointments on Monday and Tuesday. But she was resilient and to the hospital we went on Monday morning. She refused to keep using the handicapped van claiming "it was just too much trouble" and insisted on hoisting herself up into the "gargantu-van" (the name we lovingly use to identify the family custom van). On Monday they put her in the last room on the hall for her transfusion. We were there all day as they had to type and cross her before she got a single unit of blood. Her sweet friend Charlotte came and sat with her for a bit while we all went to grab some lunch. When we came back in, Greysen insisted on sharing her crackers with her. He climbed up in the bed with her, handed her a cracker, took one for himself, and proceeded to snuggle up to her. He laid his precious little head on her belly and stayed like that for a solid 10 minutes just soaking up his BeBe. Goodness how she loved him. It was such a sweet moment...
Minutes after those pictures were taken they came in the tell us that Bernice's counts had not bounced back enough after the transfusion to do a paracentesis to drain the uncomfortable fluid off her belly. I expected her to be more distraught. But she just sighed and said "ok". When the nurse left the room I said, "Bernice I'm so sorry. I know you were really hoping for some relief." To which she responded, "Well I've been praying all day that if it was in God's will for me to have the procedure, He would make my counts what they needed to be. He must have other plans!" I was shocked at her poise...at her faith. Or maybe I wasn't...it was so like her. We took her home and she let me help her get dressed for bed and give her her medications. Later that night after Jonathan and I had gone to bed, Charlie came to our room and said I needed to "come to their bedroom quick". It terrified me...I thought she was gone or going. But instead she needed my help in the restroom and she was so modest she wouldn't even let Charlie help her. She called for me by name and I came running. After I had gotten her back in bed she said, "I'm so sorry sweetie. You shouldn't have to do this kind of thing for me." To which I said, "I wouldn't be anywhere else Bernice. I was made for this and for you, and I am right where I am supposed to be doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I love you so much it hurts sometimes." She said, "Thank you sweetie. I love you so much...like you were my own daughter. I don't know what I would do without you." Of course the tears were flowing from both of us and from Charlie as he sat next to her in the bed. I pressed her hand to my chest and told her again how much I loved her, how blessed I was by our relationship, and how I would be right there next to her as we walked this road. I told her to call me if and when she needed me...I meant it. It was such a sweet moment...
As the days continued, she slipped away more and more every day. Her waking hours were less and less. Her sweet friend Brenda came along side me and the two of us were Bernice's strength. I can't tell you how blessed I was by Brenda. How beautiful those moments were when the two of us were pouring everything we had into this woman who we both loved so much. How moving it was to see this sweet sister-friend of Bernice's take such painstaking care of her in her time of greatest need. What an incredibly heartwarming picture it was of selfless love and grace and vulnerability between women. She let me take the lead in Bernice's care...somehow she knew I needed that. She would whisk away any linens that needed washing, she would put things away in the bathroom, and she did it all without saying a word. On the morning before we lost Bernice that evening, she and I changed Bernice's clothes and sheets while she stayed lying in the bed. It took every ounce of strength from all three of us to complete that task and I was so spent. Bernice hardly even came into consciousness at all in that hour and a half except to groan in pain momentarily. Brenda and I spoke sweetly to her, I slung Bernice's arms around my neck to lift her and move her, I told her how special she was, how beautiful she was, what a blessing she was. And as Brenda began whisking away linens as she did, I knelt by Bernice, held her hand pressed to my heart, and I wept. I wept because I felt like I needed to do more for her that I didn't have the strength to do. I wept because I felt like I was waning and she needed me to be strong for her. I wept because I knew she was leaving us. I wept because it wasn't fair what this sweet and gentle woman was having to endure. But I begged God, raggedly and out loud, to take her quickly when it was time. To gather her to Himself in the blink of an eye. To end her suffering. Later that afternoon I got a text from Brenda that said "Rachel, you are an incredible daughter. What a picture of love. You are Ruth my dear..." I wept all over again...because in that moment I realized what Bernice was to me. She has always been my Naomi. And Brenda was Bernice's Martha. Her sister-friend who took the lead, took the initiative, and let Bernice be Bernice. It was such a sweet moment...
And in the minutes that Bernice was breathing her last...there is nothing that I can write that can describe the desperate yet peaceful experience that was. For a solid 30 minutes Bernice was crying out for one of us to help her. We propped pillows behind her, moved blankets, propped up her legs...nothing helped. We gave her morphine...we gave her Ativan. I called the hospice nurse. She said to just try and keep her comfortable. Try we did...but we couldn't stop the trajectory of what was happening. The downward spiral had started and we were helpless to stop it. I went out of the room to nurse a fussy Greysen and Nicole followed. We talked in the living room about how we needed to tell the hospice nurse that we needed a hospital bed...or anything to help her more. And Patrick came in the room and said, "Dads says you need to come now". When I got back in the room, Jonathan was on his knees on the bed right next to her face gripping her hand and whispering "It's ok Mums, you can go". She was leaving us. Fast. I climbed up in the bed next to Jonathan...Greysen was still sweetly nursing. I put my hand on her leg and told her how loved she was, how beautiful she was, how she had fought a good fight and she didn't have to fight anymore. I would take care of Charlie. I would take care of Patrick and Nicole and Jonathan and Greysen. It's ok. I texted the hospice nurse and Brenda both. All my text said was "Brenda...she's going". Brenda and Larry and Vanessa came rushing over. Brenda and Vanessa stood next to the bedside as our sweet Bernice breathed her last. The life spiraled out of her in such a frantic way that I couldn't help but compare it to giving birth. How those moments of sheer panic, that uncontrollable freight train of a trajectory, just seems to barrel through you in waves ever more consuming. Until, in the stillness, there was no more breath in her body. And we all breathed deep...and wept. Our Bernice had left us... It was unbelievable that she was gone. But as I scanned the room in those seconds after we knew she was gone, I was overwhelmed by the tapestry of love in that room. Bernice's hands both filled with the lives she carried in her own womb, a tiny 13 month old baby whom she had loved from his literal first heartbeat, a husband with so much love for her he could hardly contain it, a daughter in law who she loved like her own daughter, a friend who was a sister, a woman who had become like her niece, and me...her Ruth. It was such a sweet moment...
My experience of those final weeks is unique to me. Each of us experienced those days, those final moments, differently. We saw different things. We wept for different reasons. But we all loved the same woman. We all desperately wanted the story to end differently. But when the time comes for me to breath my last, I hope it is at least half as beautiful as her final moments were. Surrounded by those she loved and who loved her too. It was such a sweet moment...
I miss her every day...
