By Patricia Headley
The room dwarfed the small round table and four chairs sitting in the middle of it. My sisters, Janice and Sally, and my two daughters, Glori and Chrystal, went to sit at the table while I went directly to the far wall to see Ruthanne. There she was on the gurney just as the funeral home guy said she would be. A lovely quilt covered all but her head. I intended to stand by her side, as I had done for thirty years, to say some sort of goodbye.
She looked peaceful and possibly only sleeping. I had the feeling I could nudge her and tell her it’s time to get up; we had things to do. I bent over to hug her and as my cheek touched hers, I felt how cold she was and tears filled my eyes.
“Oh, Ruthanne, I’m so sorry.”
Kidney dialysis made her so cold all the time. It had something to do with having all your blood sucked out of you, cleaned and enhanced, then shoved back into you in a fraction of the time the body usually does those chores. It upsets the normal functions of the body. It shifts the equilibrium. I wanted to grab more quilts or whatever to help her warm up. There weren’t any more quilts; there wasn’t any more of anything for her. Finally, all I could do was to tell her, “Oh sweetie, I’m going to miss you so much.”
I stood there a while longer noticing the patterns on the quilt and how new it looked. I thought perhaps the quilter had finished it only that morning. The vibrant colors, flowers, and patterns struck me as being just the right touch; a beautiful quilt to celebrate the end of a beautiful life. The quilt looked like the sort someone might purchase, and then put on display, deeming it too nice to actually use for keeping warm. It wasn’t until later that I saw the irony in that. Why hadn’t I been prepared for that aspect? Of course, they weren’t going to toss any old quilt on her. It had to look professional, neat, and tidy, not like the old raggedy, torn, well-used one I have in my closet. It had to look like they cared enough to use the best. Perhaps, I thought, the quilt was really a message for me. A new quilt for a new beginning. A new way of living. A new way of dealing with the world, and a new way of negotiating my life – alone.
I wanted to remove the quilt. I wanted to see all of her. I wanted to see those hands I fell in love with way back when, her arms, her legs, her flattened toes from wearing her hiking boots too tightly laced all those years ago. I wanted to see those legs, especially the right one, finally free of compression garments and multiple wraps she wore for twelve years. Garments she wore day and night, because the first surgery destroyed her inguinal lymph nodes; the ones that carry excess fluid from the legs to the kidneys, where it is cleaned of toxins, and the waste discarded to the bladder. I wanted to see her belly bearing all those scars from the eight surgeries she endured during her twelve-year ovarian cancer journey. And yes, even the scar left from her breast cancer. It was all hidden from me. And those were only the visible scars of her life. I wanted to climb up there and hold her one last time, and I might have, except for the others in the room.
The others let me be, giving me time and space to say my goodbyes, and when I finally moved away, knowing there was nothing more I could do for Ruthanne, someone asked me if I would like a picture of her. I hesitated briefly, wondering why I would want such a picture, but then quickly acknowledged that there would never be another chance to take it. “Yeah,” I said.
Four years later I asked my daughter Glori if she remembered that. “Who took the picture”? I asked.
“I took it,” she said. “I still have it whenever you want to see it.”
I haven’t asked to see that picture yet. I have several pictures of Ruthanne in my house, which I look at frequently. Those pictures are ones of her young, healthy, vibrant, full of life. I’m not yet brave enough to see that picture. I thought that might be possible in time. I thought I would eventually stop grieving. So many questions raced through my head that day when I saw her for the last time.
Why did life take you so young?
Why do I have to stay behind and deal with this?
Why did you have to go first?
Why couldn’t they find another treatment?
Why did they let the chemo kill your kidneys?
Why couldn’t things have stayed the same?
Why not another surgery; another twelve years?
Why is life so unfair, giving you a deadly cancer at age fifty-one?
Why didn’t you live to be eighty as you once predicted in a college paper?
While I was ranting and raving, reality tapped me on the shoulder, frowned, and gave me a significant kick. “Get over it and move on,” it said.
Snapping back into the real world, I inquired some more. This time I spoke more to myself than to the universe.
Why am I asking all these questions?
Why do I think there will be answers?
I pulled myself together somewhat and walked over to the table, where someone gave me a chair. The funeral guy walked in to talk to us. Someone else gave up a chair for him. He talked about procedures; about how they would harvest her brain for multiple sclerosis research, her last act of generosity to the world in general and to science specifically. She had dealt with that disease since age thirty-eight, but thanks to modern science was eventually able to take daily injections to keep it at a tolerable level. He talked about the cremation and what to expect when I got the cremains. “There may be fragments of bone and teeth that don’t totally burn,” he said. “You should be prepared for that.”
Why is he telling me this? Does he think I’m going to take them out and play with them?
Then he presented an invoice for the viewing, which we had discussed on the phone earlier that day. He continued to drone on about other things. My mind wandered. I noticed for the first time a shelf in the far corner holding small and large urns, jewelry, paper weights, and other items they used to preserve “your loved one’s ashes” for memory’s sake. A small discreet sign recommended contacting personnel to make arrangements for these items. For some crazy reason the addition of a website surprised me. The phone number, I expected. Continuing my visual tour of the room, I made note of the wallpaper, nothing too brash, nothing cutesy, but sedate as would be expected in a funeral home. With considerable effort, I brought my focus back to the table, wondering why I was noticing mundane details. I should be paying attention.
I paid attention, I paid the bill, I paid my last respects, and we left to get on with other mundane items of the day. I felt like none of this was real – like this wasn’t my own body I was walking around in, and I would see Ruthanne alive and well when I got back home. But reality won the day, and reluctantly, I went on with my life.