Tomorrow I will be attending the funeral of my great, great aunt. She died at the age of ninety four. I never knew her much at all until the past two years. Since January I have spent many days and nights in her little white house. I sat with her and we talked at first, I helped her stand and velcroed the braces on her legs when her fingers refused. There came the day when I made her breakfast for her because she was too tired to get it herself.
Summer came and she loved to look out the window beside her chair at the flowers that a friend so kindly weeded and nurtured. There was the big chestnut tree too, all alone in that big field. One day there was a bird in the tree and it flew away. She told me she wondered where it went and if it would come back.
Summer faded slowly into Fall and the air cooled. The heater was so warm in the house it felt like summer still, she never liked a draft. There wasn't much to see out the window anymore, and the morning light bothered her. I closed the curtains so she could sleep in her chair. She did not want to eat, I had to hold the cup to her lips, she would drink enough milk to get her medicine down. She would close her mouth tight and then close her eyes and sigh. I would leave to let her rest.
She asked sometimes about her father and mother. I told her they were home, in heaven, with Jesus. I told her we would see them again someday, when it was time. She nodded and patted my hand. At night she was often restless and called for me. I would hold her hand and talk to her until she fell asleep again.
Before very long, she no longer stood on her own to get out of her wheelchair and into bed. We had to lift her, as gently as we could. We got her some new nightgowns when hospice brought in the hospital bed. It was so much easier on her to not have to be moved to change her clothes. Somebody painted her nails red. Her favorite color.
She didn't want to eat or drink anymore. I made her as comfortable as I knew how and let her sleep. I did her laundry and combed her hair. She didn't talk much unless I woke her and then the words didn't come out right, kind of blurred together into a hum. Her niece signed a DNR so that the doctors would know she did not want life support. When it was time to go, she wanted to go at home.
And then one night she did, peacefully, at around four thirty a.m. My aunt called me the next morning to let me know and I cried.
A poet by the name of Mary Oliver once wrote:
"To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
