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…for those who wait. No time to hesitate.
Once again a MADONNA song seems to reveal a modern day parable. And in the end who do we really have but MADONNA and possibly CHER to carry us to the other side?
I’m still managing the day-to-day affairs of my EXbf’s terminal cancer. Or end-of-life transition. “Terminal cancer” sounds like a hipster airport for zodiac followers. “Flight 243, Gate 12, now boarding in Terminal Gemini.” But I digress.
He’s a trooper but the last couple of weeks have been earmarked by areas of decline. His dementia is far worse. His appetite is relatively good but he eats half of what is in front of him. He is still sitting upright and in his favorite chair but he naps there. The caregivers are still in place and to that end the money meter is churning full-speed. I am numb to my days now and stressed to the max as I manage what money he has left. I am now used to spoon feeding him dinner when his hands shake too much. I’ve picked up pieces of poop from a sagging diaper from the same floor where party gays stood swilling moderately priced sparkling wines and noshing on cocktail bites in clouds of cigarette smoke 40yrs ago. Had someone told me then that I would not bat an eye to finding a cupboard filled with soiled underpants I would have left the room in faggy disdain. Prior to hospice provided diapers the EXbf was wearing regular underwear. But he was having accidents. And rather than suffer that embarrassment he hid the soiled underwear. I think dementia played a role in the hiding-my-underwear calculations so I can’t get angry about any of this. God willing I am but a few short years away from the very same dynamic. Only I’ll be alone and sharting in better underwear.
I’ve been running into some of the building’s neighbors of late as I spend a lot of time at the EXbf’s condo. One of them stopped me in the lobby last week to tell me how much he admired what I was providing for “…that man upstairs. He is so very lucky to have you advocating for his wellness right now. I’ve heard what you’re doing and it is a blessing to him. There’s a place in heaven for you, for sure…”
Heaven. I witness daily the slow fade of this man who was such an integral part of my life’s journey on this green planet. Surely this just doesn’t end here. I mean, like, the story that we couldn’t get right on this planet maybe ‘auto corrects’ in the next world. I think of this often now. Our energy—our soaring souls, surely that life force transitions to another molecular existence or planet or star field or bright light of Christ.
I’ve been viewing YouTube vids on end of life experiences. If you watch enough of them you soon sort of change your thinking about an afterlife as so many speak of the ‘bright light’ that they walked towards or about the overall warmth of pure love as an energy field wrapping them in unspeakable joy and peace as long-gone loved ones come into shadowy view. Of course there’s the medical and scientific community that explains end of life as nothing more than the brain losing oxygen and rapid firing neurons to survive and jump start life itself. I dunno. And none of us know with the exception of the devout believers. It must be comforting to have that degree of unswerving faith.
But when faced with the death of a loved one it is natural to search for answers. On the evenings I find him already asleep I sit bedside keeping an ever-watchful eye on the pattern of his breathing. Knowing all too well that every breath is one step closer to the hour of his death. And the hour of my abject grief for the wasted hours, the lost weeks, the angry months, the regrets, the deep love and exhilarating joy of our time together. It was so short. All of this–our time here…it’s a micro flash in the universe really. We get one shot and it is gone.