The phone call woke me at 2am. Being the hospice nurse on-call, it was my
duty to be present for any patient’s death if I was needed by the family. The daughter who called was hysterical on the
phone, and even though “I’m sure she is dead…but maybe she isn’t…I think she is
still in pain…please come.” I dressed
quickly, grabbed my nursing bag and drove to the tiny town 28 miles away.
The odor of death met me at the entrance to the upstairs bedroom. I had been prepared and spread a thin line of
mint balm under my nostrils~~ but the odor seeped through it and entered my
nostrils anyway. That’s the way with
death…its particles are alive and they cling to the tiny hairs in your nose to
preserve some tangible element to remind you that there was once life there.
As I cracked the door open I closed my eyes and silently
prayed for calm. I desperately tried to
breath as shallow as possible to quell the waves of nausea that began to roll
in my stomach. Smells of urine, feces
and bed sores hung in the heavy, stale air.
One tiny night light sent out translucent beams of light toward the
small twin bed in the center of the room.
Her daughter wept behind me.
“She’s gone isn’t she?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer her just yet. I moved to the bed and sat my bag down with
my right hand as my left hand turned on the bedside lamp. Light broke the darkness and illuminated the
tiny elderly woman’s frame lying on her back in the center of the bed. Her skin was pure white and melted into her
hair line. Her mouth was open, baring gums and blackness. Her eyes were open, but unseeing….blankly
staring at the far wall. The multicolored
quilt that covered her looked oddly out of place in the darkly painted room.
Her daughter sat in the oversized blue chair in the far left
hand corner of the tiny bedroom. She rocked back and forth while mumbling an unintelligible
prayer of sorts. I took out my stethoscope
and gently placed it over Rose’s heart and waited…nothing…only stillness. I checked her carotid for a pulse and placed
my face next to her open mouth to feel for any breath…nothing~ again only
stillness. I knew she was gone, but
often times the family needs these tangible, observable assessments of life to
assure them of the truth.
After the exploding grief of pain that accompanied the
confirmation of death that I delivered to her daughter… I asked her if she
wanted me to clean her mother up and ready her for the funeral home. She told me she wanted to help me… “She was
once so proud. She hated the way she
smelled and the way that our family stopped coming by. She prayed that God would deliver her from
her torture for 6 months.”
As her daughter left the room to get a new nightgown and
some towels, I took rose and spearmint essential oils from my nursing bag and
put several drops in a basin of warm water.
I lit a clean linen candle that I kept in my bag and placed it on the
bed side stand. When she returned we
slowly bathed her mother. We started at
her face and worked our way to her feet.
Several moments were spent in silence, and some were spent in the sound
of her grown daughter’s tears. We placed
clean lines underneath her and covered her with a clean white sheet and the
multicolored quilt.
While we bathed her, I learned that this patient was a
ballerina and the she taught classes until she was 70. She was married at age 18 and widowed at
30. She had a master’s in music and
played classical music every day as therapy for her sadness. She never remarried. Her daughter was an only child and her best
friend. She never ate meat and only drank
once a year on her husband’s death anniversary.
She had 2 sisters that she adored, but then resented as they stayed
away. She never ate at fast food
restaurants but she loved the smell of Pizza Hut. She loved flowers but once she got sick she couldn’t
stomach their smell. As she grew sicker
she never wanted to talk about dancing or listen to classical music. She didn’t accept chemotherapy or radiation
and she lived with her cancer for 4 years.
She was only in pain at the end.
I wish I had known her in life.
That couple hours of time was one of the richest experiences
I had in my years of doing hospice nursing.
Rose was not my patient so I had not met her before that night. Her daughter needed me and I was so glad that
I answered that early morning call in April.
Bathing her mother and readying her for the “last part of the journey”
was such “a gift.” I was honored to help
and be present for this moment in their lives.
I have never seen the daughter again, but the memory surfaces during
April every year…
What are your most treasured memories from your career????
