By Nancy Hartney
I stared at the man walking toward me. Stopped. Stared. He wore a black tee, white lettering emblazoned with “I’m not dead yet” across his chest. Weeks before, I had donated a similar tee to a resell shop.
The man paused at my reaction.
“Where did you get that shirt?” I blurted and quickly added, “It’s so unusual.”
“This?” The feller, smiled, looked down, and pulled at the tee. “Ah, this one I bought at the resale shop. Kinda tickled me.”
Memories unspooled backward. My husband Bob in his black tee with the taunting not dead yet phrase. He wore it as a joke, laughing at himself and the world. Lines around his eyes would crinkle up and he’d give full teeth smile whenever anyone remarked on the tee.
The phrase, I’m not dead yet, came from an old slapstick movie, now a cult classic, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, subsequently produced for the theater. Set around the Arthurian legend, it spoofs the black plague in a scene which featured one man with a death cart and another trying to convince him an old man was dead who therefore kept insisting, “I’m not dead yet.” After the stage production, my Bob bought that shirt—because the phrase tickled his fancy.
He loved wearing that tee to his beer klatch at the local pub. The boys in the bar made jokes about the phrase, guffawed, and ordered another round. Loving him, they listened to his tales of cell phones gone rogue; lawn mowers parked in the driveway signaling another repair shop visit. Laughed over a long-distance wifely call, how do you open the gas tank? Or a dinner order gone wrong, household cats on the loose, keys locked inside the car at an out-of-town conference.
He and the other bar denizens had some fine times discussing life, politics, and the best take-out restaurants. They traded information on where to get help with drainage problems, places to buy tires, and low mileage cars for sale. They were a living, breathing yellow pages of local information.
That black tee was his default uniform except on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. He reserved that day for his green tee-and-ball cap-Hartney-logo ensemble. He and the boys toasted the Emerald Isle and bragged on any Celtic heritage. After all, a dose of Blarney heals even non-Irish souls. Those barflies bought rounds until they were in their cups. Gotta smile at their shenanigans. And their love of Notre Dame football.
But Bob is dead.
I found him in a thick pool of blood, unresponsive, when I returned from walking our dog Yeller. Horror and confusion gushed through me. I called 911. Those emergency workers swept in, found a perfect storm of prescribed blood thinner, head injury, and alcohol. They realized Bob’s blood pressure was dropping too fast, secured a neck brace, strapped him on a stretcher, and with lights blazing and siren wailing, tore away. Numb, in shock, I hung on as we sped to the hospital.
Emergency medics, a neurosurgeon, and several ER doctors worked into the dark morning hours. Whole blood transfusion. IVs. Brain scans. Unconscious. X-rays. Head staples. Sodium level too low. More IVs. Marginally stabilized. Drugs to prevent seizures. A darkened room. No response to my voice. Raw emotion engulfed me. Fear settled onto my shoulders, stabbed every thought.
Five days in the hospital. Drugs required for potential alcohol withdrawal and to prevent seizures from the brain trauma. Muscle tone declining. Bedpan. Cranial hematoma. Staples digging in. Salt tablets. Adjustments to heart medications. Blood thinner adjustments. Finally, with nothing more to be done medically, Bob moved to a rehab facility.
Rehabilitation.
The word gnawed. Clawed at my consciousness.
Physical therapists retaught basic functions of getting around and climbing stairs. How to get in and out of a vehicle, use a walker over uneven ground. Occupational and speech therapists retrained him on following directions, how to focus and remember pictures, translate words into actions, eat, bathe. Hold on to dignity; soon lost. Images too vivid. Traumatic brain injury, aka TBI.
Two weeks later, he returned home. More work. Therapists and nurses continued as he tried to recover daily living skills. Simple things. Taking a shower, how to use the TV remote, form words, write, climb stairs. Everyday tasks. Useful things sandwiched among the outpatient appointments, psychic trauma, and stress. And, always, always, the emotional upheaval.
I stared at the Python tee, blinked back swirling, conflicted thoughts, memories. Forward. Backward. Love. Anger. Fear.
But Bob is dead, four months shy of his eightieth birthday, from a fall which morphed into his final step. Married for forty-one years. Living that crossed Illinois, Texas, California, Arkansas. Years woven through several careers. For him, Xerox management, sheltered workshop for handicapped individuals, United States Postal Service. For myself, Lena Pope Children’s Home, Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, the University of Arkansas, and Fayetteville Public Library. In the end, we never got to say goodbye.
Thoughts spun wildly from the past to the years ahead. Now, just me and choices. Choices without a safety net. Choices only answering to self. Empowerment choices.
“My Bob had a similar tee. He loved wearing it,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s a good one.” The man smiled, rubbed the shirt.
I nodded. “Wear it in good health for many years to come.”
He returned my nod. “Thanks.”
We went our separate ways.
I’m not dead yet.