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| There's all kinds of waiting. Waiting for school to start, for the phone to ring, to find a job. Waiting for a baby to be born or the bride to walk down the aisle, Waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right. Waiting for retirement. Then there's waiting to die. My younger brother has cancer. We've known sometime, but kept hoping for a miracle. He's been well for a while. Then Stage Four was diagnosed in September. Clinical trials were started. He even drove himself out of town for it once. After the first set, he went in for a check up. Tumors were discovered in his arm, and X-ray therapy began. He was too sick to go back for the immuno-therapy, so he started Chemo. It was just too late. A few rounds of that and he quit. We don't know for sure if it was the Chemo or the cancer that wore him down. He's been in steady decline since Thanksgiving. He drove himself to my house for Christmas, but couldn't walk to the dining room table. We fed him from the coffee table in the living room. Today, he is a skeleton with skin tightly stretched over it. He can hardly speak and uses his hands to signal us. His mind is still working. He still listens and worries about his lawn mower. He was still attempting conversation just a week ago, but not today. He has no appetite. He is slowly starving. He wanted no heroic attempts to save his life. He can't be force fed. He was in the hospital for ten days, where they gave him platelets to stop the incessant nose bleeds. They also took care of the fluid problem that kept him from breathing. But you can't stay forever in that final stage. In our whole area, there was no available bed in hospice. So he was sent home. It is quieter there, but lonely. His friends and family are watching this fiercely independent man, who was self-reliant and never took help from anyone become totally dependent on someone else to go to the bathroom or drink water. Beyond the crying stage, we watch with heavy hearts as he teeters between life and death. We have learned there are no grudges worth holding, nothing that can't be forgiven or overlooked. There is a bond between family members that nothing in this life can break, not even death. So we wait, as long as it takes. We take turns staying with him. We feed him, pray with him, take care of his home, his vehicles, his outdoor equipment. One daughter cleaned out his refrigerator. Both daughters do laundry and dress him while tending to their own small children. Our father, who is 90, sits by his bedside as often as possible. His grandchildren have their home life and routines disrupted by the absence of their mothers. I've had children staying with me, one at a time. An uncle has pitched in with some out of town vacations for two of the little boys. One friend has driven from 70 miles away at least 3 times a week to stay almost all day. Four generations of our family are involved in this arduous waiting. Waiting is not easy, especially when you don't want the ending. But death is inevitable. We don't all have time to prepare ourselves and to say our good-byes the way my brother did. It's a prolonged sadness. We will stand by him. We will wait. |
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