Today: pain control, comfort.
The words are scrawled across the white board in my Aunt Gail’s hospital room. It looks like such a simple note. I keep expecting to see “pick up milk” or “yoga Tuesday at three” written under it.
I glance at the message board whenever I can’t bear to look at my aunt, or about every three minutes. It doesn’t take long for the endless tubes snaking across her upper body and her swollen feet — a sign of organ failure — to get to me. How can this woman with the dry, shaking hands and the sunken chest be my Aunt Gail, my dad’s little sister? She’s tall. Like the kind of tall that should play professional basketball or never wear high heels. People say I get my height from her. She doesn’t look tall anymore.
She’s been in the hospital for three days. For three days her body’s waged a war against her. All of it — the beeping machines, the tired nurses, the smell — feels like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. But there’s no inner dialogue from Meredith Grey. There’s no snappy comment from Dr. Bailey. Today is not a beautiful day to save lives. Today is just another day of pain and fighting and Leukemia for my aunt.
My aunt is dying. Her body is killing her. The cancer that I never knew she had is back, and all I can do is look at that fucking white board.
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It’s Christmas Eve and my dad is crying.
My brother Sean just made a toast to my Aunt Gail. A sister, an aunt, a sister-in-law.
My father — a man who made it out of inner city Columbus, joined the Air Force and saw Europe, struggled through two divorces and raised three kids — just walked out of the room so no one would see him cry. But we all know.
The last time I saw my dad cry he was packing. I was probably six or seven. It was the end of my parent’s divorce and the beginning of my two separate lives. Eventually, after a couple of years apart and much work on both their parts, my parents would get back together. But that was years away. At that moment, I was a kid watching my dad sitting on the edge of his former bed in his former room crying.
This time my parents are married. No one is leaving. No one is turning my life upside down. No one’s bags are packed. But my dad is still crying. And it feels just as awful as it did the last time.
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“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transformation that’s troublesome.” I think about Isaac Asimov’s quote as I wait for my aunt’s funeral to start. It’s one of my favorite quotes. I used to think it was clever. Now it just seems sad.
No one at the funeral looks sad, at least on the outside. They fill the emptiness with chatter and hugs. We’re all thinking the same thing: If we keep moving and talking and smiling, we won’t have to focus on how broken we feel.
I read the obituary. So many family members are already gone: My grandfather Leon who died 30 years before I was born. My grandmother Norma who I should have got to know while I had the time. My dad’s stepfather, who everyone called Reverend. I’ve only heard stories about him. I know he ate chicken feet and I know I’m sitting in his former church, Liberty Hill Baptist. I had the most time with my uncle Roger and my aunt Barbara Jean, but if someone were to ask me to name ten facts about them, I would be lost. All the uncles and aunts I never met: Robert, James, Shirley, Daphne and Sandra.
I don’t expect to cry when my cousin Alan sings the gospel song, “I Won’t Complain.” I don’t expect to soak through a pack of tissues when my cousins Reece and Ruben talk about their mom, my aunt. Whenever Reece mentions one of his mother’s achievements or attributes he ends with, “That’s, that’s my mom.” It’s like he can’t believe he was lucky enough to have her, this amazing woman who raised two boys, often by herself. This brilliant woman who traced our family history back centuries and worked endlessly as the director of the local Boys and Girls Club. We were the lucky ones, Aunt Gail.
Later that night, I think about a family get-together we had this summer. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my aunts Brenda and Gail and more cousins than I could count. (That’s what happens when your dad comes from a family of 12.) I looked around at all the women in the room, these strong, amazing women who raised children — raised me. They’ve seen so much loss and so much sadness. But they survived.
Life is pleasant.
