Awakening

I awoke alone in a hospital room on Thanksgiving morning four years ago today. I didn’t know what kind of day it would be because I didn’t know if Jane had survived the night. Her doctors had sent me off about midnight as they tried to calm her down. My very presence seemed to upset her.

…it is easy to forget that there is good in the world…

Jane had emerged from the first carcinoid attack two nights before following a 33-hour coma. She’d initially been angry to find I’d allowed them to intubate her but understood after I explained to her why I’d agreed to it. She insisted it come out as soon as they could do it and–against the advice of the hospitalist–it had come out Tuesday night.

The night before

But Wednesday, she’d become increasingly agitated. She tried to pull out the monitoring and medication lines and became violent when we stopped her. Her blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rose and fell like the stock market and a particularly volatile day. I tried to talk to her–to calm her down–but no matter how soothing I tried to be, everything I did just upset her more.

My very presence seemed to upset her.

I was doing no good and was, myself, becoming more and more frustrated. In the back of my mind the chorus of voices kept reminding me that I should have let her go Monday morning. I hadn’t–and this was the result. They had put Jane in restraints, but her body was still thrashing around in anger as they took me down the hall.

Sleepless in Boston

The doctors and nurses promised they’d come get me if they needed me or if things took a sudden, fatal turn. I tried to sleep, curled in a fetal ball on the too small bed in an alien space. I knew that if they came for me I needed to be able to make good decisions–knew I was too tired and frustrated to make them.

They had put Jane in restraints…

I didn’t sleep well, but I slept. They hadn’t come for me in the night. But that didn’t mean the situation had changed in a positive way, either. She might still be agitated and angry this morning–and part of me did not want to see that. I stared out the window for a few minutes, steeling myself for the worst.

Jane’s last Thanksgiving

Finally, I opened the door and walked down the hall. There were still people in the room with her but they were all calm. Jane was no longer in restraints. She turned her head as I came in sight of the door.

They hadn’t come for me in the night.

“I love you hubby,” she said as she saw me. She was wearing the biggest grin–the grin she used when she was really happy–the grin she had on our wedding day as we walked down the aisle and out of the church.

Then I was hugging her and all was right with the world.

Thanksgiving visitors

We arranged for Jane’s father and sister and a couple of friends to come visit that afternoon. Jen Chan, her oncologist, came by in the morning–having put the Turkey in the oven and leaving her husband in charge of it and her children–just to visit. It was the best Thanksgiving Jane and I ever had–even if all we had to eat together was a cup of broth for her and a bowl of pumpkin soup for me.

‘I love you hubby.’

It was also our last Thanksgiving together. Fourteen days later she would go into a coma for the last time. Thirty hours later her heart would stop and she would draw and exhale her last breath.

Giving thanks

I am thankful for that day, for all that the memory of it inflicts such pain now. I am thankful for most of the two weeks that followed–though there are moments in those two weeks I would like to forget. Her calm bravery still inspires me.

It was also our last Thanksgiving together.

But the Thanksgivings since have been empty exercises. I bake bread in the morning, as Jane once did, using Jane’s recipe. I’ll bake a pie this year, I think. I go to dinner, watch football, talk with Jane’s sister, aunt and cousins. This year, I’ll visit Jane’s father in a rehab facility if they don’t parole him for the day.

Thanksgiving pain

I’ll come home, at last, to the emptiness of this house. The remnants of the love we built here will try to console me but the silence will engulf everything. I’ll watch Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life and they will drive the darkness back until I can sleep.

…Thanksgivings since have been empty exercises.

In the morning, I will decorate the house for Christmas. I’ll remember the years we did that together and be thankful I have those memories, be thankful I have the ornaments she made to hang on the tree, be thankful for all the blessings that remain from our 21 years, three months and eight days of marriage.

Reclaiming Thanksgiving

And I’ll be thankful for the friends who’ve helped me endure these four years of grief and who have helped me find ways to help others. I’ll be thankful for the roof over my head and the food in the pantry. I’ll be thankful for the doctors and the nurses who are still out there fighting injury and disease and for the researchers trying to find the answers not just to Jane’s cancer but to all the other diseases human beings endure.

…I will decorate the house for Christmas.

In grief and pain it is easy to forget that there is good in the world–and that the authors of that good are often other people like ourselves: mere wounded souls who yet hold candles in their hands to light the darkness regardless of the wind.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Pax et lux,

Harry Proudfoot

Walking with Jane