Chapter 21

The rest of the day passed in a strange haze of unreality. I called the pastor and let him know Don had died, and he told me he was coming to the hospital as soon as he could. Then I headed down the hall to let the girls know Daddy had died. They'd apparently gotten a little restless, and a volunteer had taken them downstairs to the garden. I waited by the elevator, and before long they and Don's two brothers emerged from the elevator.

I put my arms around my girls, and sent a look of apology at the brothers.

"I'm sorry," I said, and for the first time I felt tears clog my voice. "Daddy's dead."

The girls burst into sobs, and I hugged them, comforting them as best I could. The brothers looked solemn but steady, and I could see them mentally girding themselves to be the support the family needed.

I held my girls for a while. The older one wanted to see Don's body, but I said no, because I wasn't sure she was able to cope with that yet. After a while, when they were calmer, I sent them back into the waiting area to watch TV with one of the brothers.

When the pastor arrived, he helped me deal with the practical things that had to be done. "You'll need to call a funeral home," he said.

"Don wanted to be cremated," I answered.

He suggested that we call the local cremation society, which would be much cheaper and less complex. He offered to make the call for me, and inquired into what sort of urn Don would want.

"He wouldn't want anything fancy," I said, and smiled a little. "In fact, he'd probably be happiest if we put his ashes in a shoebox, with his name scribbled on it in Sharpie."

The pastor was unamused by my brittle effort at humor. He frowned at me seriously. "You'll want a nice urn."

"Something plain," I said, because Don would surely have haunted me if I'd spent a lot of money on a fancy container for his ashes. At any rate, I knew that Don wasn't in the lifeless form on the bed any longer.

The pastor called and made the arrangements. Meanwhile, the family sat talking quietly. It seemed strange to me to be sitting around chatting with a corpse on the bed, but this was one of the principles the Palliative Care wing was based on-- they were there to serve the living as well as the dead, and so they didn't instantly whisk the deceased's body away. If those who'd been left behind wanted to sit and gaze upon the body for a while, the people in Palliative Care didn't try to rush the family out the door.

I went down and spoke to my kids again, and my oldest told me again that she wanted to see her father's body. Unsure what to do, I consulted with the pastor.

"I'd let her see him," he said gently. "Otherwise what she imagines might be worse than what she actually sees."

I saw the wisdom of that, and went down the hall to retrieve her. She came into the room and looked at her father's body for a long time, very solemn but dry-eyed.

"Okay," she said at last, and went back down the hall.

Early in the afternoon, one of my sisters-in-law arrived. She walked into the room, took one look at the lifeless form on the bed, and burst into tears.

"I knew I should take off work," she sobbed. "I should have been here yesterday..."

I went over to her and put my arms around her.

"It's okay," I told her. "He wasn't really aware of what was going on yesterday. It meant a lot more to him that you were at his birthday party. Don't be upset. It's all right."

She cried a little more, then sat down and joined the conversation. Don lay still. His eyes were still partly open, because no one had thought to close them until after his muscles locked, and he still seemed to be gazing out the window, into the sunshine.

At last one of the nurses came into the room and spoke to me.

"They'll need to take the body soon," she told me gently.

I looked at the clock. It was three o'clock. I supposed we'd all mourned around the body enough, and I let everyone know that we needed to get going soon. People began stirring, and heading down the hall. My parents-in-law were the last to go, and I stepped out for a moment or two to give them a final moment with their son.

When I returned, they went out, but before I could take a quiet moment for myself, someone stuck their head back in-- one of the brothers. I glared, and he took the hint and retreated.

I took Don's hand-- cold and lifeless-- in mine, and looked down on the still form that had once been an energetic, active man with a wry smile and a quirky mind. I knew I would never again see my husband's face in this world, and tears rose to my eyes.

I bent and kissed his cold forehead.

"I love you," I told him. "Goodbye."

I let go of his hand and turned toward the door.

And then I put on his beloved Virginia Tech jacket, and walked out of the room.

More to come...