Monday, March 28, 2011

Last Days, by Donald Hall

“It was reasonable
to expect.” So he wrote. The next day,
in a consultation room,
Jane’s hematologist Letha Mills sat down,
stiff, her assistant
standing with her back to the door.
“I have terrible news,”
Letha told them. “The leukemia is back.
There’s nothing to do.”
The four of them wept. He asked how long,
why did it happen now?
Jane asked only: “Can I die at home?”
Home that afternoon,
they threw her medicines into the trash.

Jane vomited. He wailed
while she remained dry-eyed – silent,
trying to let go. At night
he picked up the telephone to make
calls that brought
a child or a friend into the horror.

The next morning,
they worked choosing among her poems
for Otherwise, picked
hymns for her funeral, and supplied each
other words as they wrote
and revised her obituary. The day after,
with more work to do
on her book, he saw how weak she felt,
and said maybe not now; maybe
later. Jane shook her head: “Now,” she said.
“We have to finish it now.”

Later, as she slid exhausted into sleep,
she said, “Wasn’t that fun?
To work together? Wasn’t that fun?”
He asked her, “What clothes
should we dress you in, when we bury you?”
“I hadn’t thought,” she said.
“I wondered about the white salwar
kameez,” he said –
her favorite Indian silk they bought
in Pondicherry a year
and a half before, which she wore for best
or prettiest afterward.
She smiled. “Yes. Excellent,” she said.
He didn’t tell her
that a year earlier, dreaming awake,
he had seen her
in the coffin in her white salwar kameez.

Still, he couldn’t stop
planning. That night he broke out with,
“When Gus dies I’ll
have him cremated and scatter his ashes
on your grave!” She laughed
and her big eyes quickened and she nodded:
“It will be good
for the daffodils.” She lay pallid back
on the flowered pillow:
“Perkins, how do you think of these things?”
They talked about their
adventures – driving through England
when they first married,
and excursions to China and India.

Also they remembered
ordinary days – pond summers, working
on poems together,
walking the dog, reading Chekhov
aloud. When he praised
thousands of afternoon assignations
that carried them into
bliss and repose on this painted bed,
Jane burst into tears
and cried, “No more fucking. No more fucking!”

Incontinent three nights
before she died, Jane needed lifting
onto the commode.
He wiped her and helped her back into bed.

At five he fed the dog
and returned to find her across the room,
sitting in a straight chair.
When she couldn’t stand, how could she walk?
He feared she would fall
and called for an ambulance to the hospital,
but when he told Jane,
her mouth twisted down and tears started.
“Do we have to?” He canceled.
Jane said, “Perkins, be with me when I die.”
“Dying is simple,” she said.
“What’s worst is… the separation.”

When she no longer spoke,
they lay along together, touching,
and she fixed on him
her beautiful enormous round brown eyes,
shining, unblinking,
And passionate with love and dread.

One by one they came,
the oldest and dearest, to say goodbye
to this friend of the heart.
At first she said their names, wept, and touched;
then she smiled; then
turned one mouth-corner up. On the last day
she stared silent goodbyes
with her hands curled and her eye stuck open.

Leaving his place beside her,
where her eyes stared, he told her,
“I’ll put these letters
in the box.” She had not spoken
for three hours, and now Jane said
her last words: “O.K.”

At eight that night,
her eyes open as they stayed
until she died, brain-stem breathing
started, he bent to kiss
her pale cool lips again, and felt them
one last time gather
and purse and peck to kiss him back.

In the last hours, she kept
her forearms raised with pale fingers clenched
at cheek level, like
the goddess figurine over the bathroom sink.
Sometimes her right fist flicked
or spasmed toward her face. For twelve hours
until she died, he kept
scratching Jane Kenyon’s big bony nose.
A sharp, almost sweet
smell began to rise from her open mouth.
He watched her chest go still.
With his thumb he closed her round brown eyes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi! I stumbled across you blog while searching in cancer related issues! I had to go back to the beginning of your blog and read through them all - I love them!

I have terminal cancer, I was only 26yrs old when diagnosed in Dec 2008, at that point, I had been married to my childhood sweetheart for five years (Nov 22nd 2003) and we have two beautiful young sons, who were only 4yrs and 2 yrs old at diagnosis!! A extremely rare, aggressive cancer called a Ewings / Undifferentiated Soft Tissue Sarcoma! Basically the worst of most cancers, resistant to Chemo and only curable by surgery! I can't be operated on, it's too advanced!

A year of Chemo hell, they hit me as hard as they could because I have no other choice, and because I am so young - they decided I could take it! Very aggressive Chemo, along with adjuvant radiation!

I was given SIX MONTHS! Devasting! I was scared, but what I found the hardest and most unfair was not for me, it was for my beautiful boys! Why do they have to grow up without a mother, will they remember me at this young age, they won't know who I was, who will teach them those things only mothers can, I wont get to see them grow up and turn into the men I know they will become - that was my living hell!!

Chemo left me unable to stand, walk - most I did was get from bed to couch! I couldn't play, run, work, talk or even read! I was a nothing. My boys would run in and jump on me and that was almost more than i could bare - all they would have seen and maybe remembered was their mummy lying on the couch, crying or sleeping - barely alive! That was not living, i was barely alive - sometimes I even wished for death!

Much more I could say, but you have seen first hand what Chemo does to a person! My husband, was and still is my caregiver! He is my rock, my love, my husband, my best friends - not once complained, and never walked away like so many friends have!! What I wanted to say initially was, thank you! Thank you for this blog from the perspective of the caregiver! It is hard, hard work, and I appreciate you so much! Without my husband, who looked after me, showered, feed, cooked, cleaned, looked after children, and STILL worked a 50hr week, I would not have made it through!!

Thank you for being so honest - keep it up! This is what a blog is meant to be, honest, truthful words about how you feel daily in this horrific situation! You are doing an amazing job and your lovely husband appreciates this more than you know!!

This entry, poem about Last Days really struck a chord with me! I laughed, I cried and prayed that my last days will be as peaceful as this! So far, you have given me a list of books that I want/need to read, other websites to look up, another blog that I know read - and a different appreciation for my husband, my caregiver! I thank you for this!!

P.S: I am a walking miracle - in Dec this year (2013) I will have made my FIVE YEAR MARKER!! I can only thank a higher power for this gift, who I pray to daily! Praise God for every extra day I get with my children, husband, family and friends!!

The doctors continue to be gobsmacked that I am still here! Statistically only 1% of all cancers diagnosed are Sarcomas, mainly show in younger children or eldery, and that's still rare - but in my age is very, very rare! I shouldn't have lasted one year, let alone four!! No one my age has lived past FIVE years without a curative operation!! Also, Sarcomas have a extremely high recurrence rate - so although my tumor is stable for now, at anytime could pop up elsewhere, or start primary regrowth - once this happens it will be extremely quick and aggressive also with no options when this happens!! So, I haven always lived day by day, afraid of when it will show it's ugly head, and it's so hard to live like this :-(

Anyway, I will continue to read your blog, and now will post comments when something resonates with me!! In thought I should give you a quickish background on who I am :-)

Thank you, Sarah - cancer arse kicker from New Zealand!!