The parade of final-time visitors is in full thrush.
Just before they began trooping through the door of her second-floor hospital room yesterday, an extraordinarily weak Diane looked at me and said in a voice that was an unintentional whisper, “It is time for me to leave.”
“I want to go with you,” I told her. I did. I do.
She is scheduled to go home later this morning in a hospice setting. Could be any hour. Only God knows.
We have known, of course, since her diagnosis 16 months ago last Saturday that her ALS is incurable.
Maybe we could be an exception.
We traveled. Not widely, but frequently. Except for the first weeks when we cried a lot, we did not sit home.
On those early Sundays, I would find an excuse to take a walk so I could cry privately. When I would return home, I found she, too, had been crying.
The present moments are the most precious of our lives together because her death will occur soon.
I am reminded of a similar morning 34 years ago on Oct. 15. Mom had been pushing back with increasingly weakening arms against her cancer. I telephoned her daily. Because her once vibrant voice had been shrunk to a frightful, nearly unrecognizable whisper, I would tell her, “Conserve your energy, I will talk.” With fervor and a disappointing lack of imagination, I would say “I love you, Mom.” When the call came from my wife at 6:15 that final morning to my desk at the Evening Outlook offices, I knew it was over before answering. The ring spelled out the message. I crumbled.
Please God don’t let that happen this time. I intend to be present.
This time the end has come blindingly fast. On Friday afternoon, perched in her favorite oversized, lily-white easy chair, she entertained a doctor and a nurse practitioner from the VA. They were the two persons to whom she was closest before ALS drove her to premature retirement last Dec. 31.
They laughed for hours, swapping memories and stories.
Meanwhile Rosa, our longtime housekeeper, scurried about, blissfully unaware that time was up.
No one suspected this was the closing act. For Shabbos dinner that evening, Diane ate a leg of chicken prepared by our generous friend Shulamit. It was her final meal. Since, she has subsisted on liquids. By 5 Saturday morning, we were in the hospital.
When I left her bedside this morning, she said in a sturdier- than-usual voice, “I love you.” Those are the feelings I choose to dwell on for the rest of time.
May Hashem grant you both the strength and blessings.
– Alan
Ari, sending thoughts of strength and peace to you and to your family.
I write this expression of sympathy through tears, as ine who has been there, I am so very, very sorry. I hope she knows how much she is cared about by people who never even met her, like me.
Your friends and colleagues in Culver City weep for Diane and you. So sorry.
Ari, children, family and friends. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I ask for you strength.
Sonja Nixon – VA Hospital