A week into John's decision to stop eating, he asked to get out of bed one last time. He wanted to watch our wedding video, he told me. It was the last request he made. The hospice nurse didn't think he should be removed from bed, too precarious and painful at this stage, and she offered to bring her own small television and v.c.r. to our home, to the bedroom, and set it up so we could view it from John's bed.
But he would not have it. Once more, he wanted to be taken from his bed, sit upright in the world, and watch a video we had not seen since our wedding day, nearly eleven years earlier.
I remember the last time I lifted him from his bed. I hoisted his small body into the lift and to the air; his limbs and head hanging limp like a rag doll. I wheeled him into the sitting room where I had everything ready for the screening. The wheelchair seemed to swallow him, a wisp of a body more of bone and loose flesh than anything else, his head way too large now and out of proportion, barely able to balance itself on a slackened neck.
I sat next to him. I held his hand. We watched ourselves, younger and healthier then, filled with joy, laughter, and so much hope. He saw his sister and brother, our family and friends. We watched ourselves embrace and kiss beneath a stand of ancient redwoods near the sea, in the city by the bay.
Everything then, was for the last time.
What came next, and through our tears, caught us both off guard. We had forgotten that following the wedding day video, was footage from our first date many years before, taken by a friend as we attended the annual Renaissance Fair in Marin County. How young we looked, then. How beautiful he looked. I had forgotten how beautiful he once was. I heard his voice again, clear, strong, yet soft as silk. I saw his healthy, strong body move freely and fluidly. I saw the exuberance of life in his pale blue eyes, hope for the future on our younger, innocent faces.
Innocence is a marvelous thing. It is good not to know too much of what lies ahead - how abruptly the world can end - the edge and drop oftentimes closer than one would like.
We wept together. We wept for those days, for happier times. We wept over the loss of his body, his voice, and our future. But most of all, we wept for the strength of our love. We had not been afforded the gift of time, of hopes and dreams, of growing old with one another. But rather, we were blessed with a love that had endured and blossomed in the hardest of times, sustained us through disease, and even at death, was a bond greater than any other we had ever known. As we often said, our time may have been cut short, but what we had, together, most people do not find in a lifetime.
I wheeled him back to bed. His blue eyes were red and swollen. I kissed him. He fell asleep quickly and peacefully.
In watching him sleep, I felt a small wave caress my body. This one was gentle and warm. It rocked me, easily, pooled around my ankles, then slipped out to sea.
For John
Excerpt from the memoir, In the Heart of the Lily, copyright 2007, Jan Baumgartner. Previously published on OEN Feb. 2007.
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