This has been a difficult year. Marilyn’s illness and death were overwhelming. One of the only things to look forward to was the birth of our fifth grandchild – a beautiful baby boy. He was a strapping 7 lbs,12 oz. His name is Brooks Bohan LeFager. When things were darkest, he was a ray of light. I talked to one of the nurses at JourneyCare about this. She said she has been a hospice nurse for over 20 years. She worked at one of the JourneyCare Hospitals in the city. It was on the grounds of a general hospital. She said their wing was directly across from the Maternity wing and she could often see the nurses holding and feeding the newborns while she was caring for the dying . She said it made clear to her the circle of life .
I guess that is true but it didn’t make this easier to go thru. I think one of the difficult things for me is that I comforted patients and their families when they were going thru this. I said the same things to them that nurses and physicians are saying to me.
What is different is that I was losing the only woman I ever loved—the center of my life. My father died when I was twenty. My mother died when I was thirty-three. Our Aunt and Uncle handled a lot of my father’s funeral and helped greatly with my mother’s. I don’t have a lot of memories of doing that. When my sister died her husband took care of the funeral.
The last six to eight months were very difficult. I lost my wife an inch at a time until the last few weeks when it really accelerated. At the end she couldn’t eat or swallow and really couldn’t communicate. She was comatose almost the entire eleven days she was in JourneyCare. I stayed with her until the end ,hoping she would briefly wake up to say goodbye, but she never did. One of the unforgettable moments occurred when my son and his wife brought the new baby into her room. They were able to lay him momentarily next to her in the hospital bed. I want to believe that she was aware of him and showed him the same immediate love she had for all of our grandchildren.
A few weeks after the funeral I was at a T-Ball game with our five y/o grand son. Brooks was also there and was beginning to get restless. His Mom comforted him and he calmed down. I went over to watch him and he smiled at me . I cant tell you what that meant . It felt initially like an immense weight was lifted and I smiled back.
I know I cant keep focusing on the past. I have all of these memories and things to remind me of Marilyn. I was in a dentist ‘s chair when all of a sudden Elton John’s song “Tiny Dancer “ came on. I almost burst into tears right there, but covered it up with a cough. I always treasured that song and associated it with Marilyn from the time we were dating. I see photographs of us with our children and grandchildren. I see pictures of our vacations and holidays. I know the memories will always be there. Hopefully they wont hurt as much in the future .
Until then I need to focus on small things like infants smiling and base hits and dance recitals and high school concerts because that is what is important right now.