...?

Pondering is a quiet activity; a rather peaceful interlude in one's brain in an effort to explain; the observance of something extraordinary and out of place in an ordinary setting.

Mary pondered...this Mary too. (my first name is Mary)

And so I'm still pondering somethng extraordinary...my husband's life - in an out of place setting...a gurney in the Emergency Room of a small town hospital.  What are we doing here?  Why does no one answer their phone?  Are my decisions the best and safest for the Love of my life?  What wife is wise enough to know when to say to the medical team, "Call it." ? 

After all, we just came here because he had a terrible cough...pneumonia my best guess. 

The staff was calm for quite a while...the doctor asking, "Have you ever had any heart problems?"  To which Joe replied, "No but my heart skipped a beat or two when I met this lovely lady!"  I bet I'm glowing!  Joe was scanned and x-rayed in his room and taken for other kinds of scans and tests for an hour.....and then...

The doctor's first visit to my chair in the waiting room where I've been taken...now I know it's not pneumonia, my husband needs a team of cardiologists and post haste...they're waiting for us in the ER of a large city 50 miles away.  Why aren't they boarding him on the ambulance waiting just outside the door?  Why are people rushing?  Why are the cardiologists spouting instructions like stuccato notes on the piano, making our doctor rush back and forth?

I'm permitted to go back into his room. We're alone, but it's OK.  He begins to struggle to breath and tries to say to the nurse, when can I breath?   Then I see the heart monitor behind him go crazy with lines like scary hot electrical wires broken onto a street in stormy weather.  There is fear and pain on his face...the sweet face that kisses mine daily at this time of very early morning.  We have a regular 3 a.m. date and it's pretty steamy.  The nurse asks a team member to escort me out to the waiting room again where I hear yelling from my husband's room...what are they yelling?  I can't discern the words; just the urgent volumn.

Again the doctor comes to my seat in the waiting room. I'm still calm...my husband needs me to be.  I control myself for him.  The situation is now very serious, but not without the possibility of being "turned around."  He says I may stand in the hall outside the room now.  Thank goodness...I'm closer to him there.  Through the door crack at the hinge side of the door I can see his head grotesquely positioned back, as if broken so things can be placed there in his throat.  This door is slightly ajar and I see from his abdomen down...what is that!!...waves rush down his abdomen in an eerry way like the ones in a wave pool in summer heat.  No time for questions. 

The doctor comes out to say the team needs my help now.  What do I want them to do?  I've already heard the conversation in the room: "We've lost him."  I turn to the doctor and ask what chance there is that he could be revived and live some quality of life... I see him struggle to find nice words to use...but there is nothing but the truth to speak.  My precious husband has no pulse and his heart has stopped.  Now, after trying to shock him back they need me to make the decision whether or not to call it.  We agree, in light of papers my husband signed and explained to me in the the days before, I answer, "We have to honor his decision; please call it."  I do not see my husband alive again...no parting kiss or gentle "I love you."

Oh, my gosh!  Did those words, "Call it." come from my mouth?!!!  They didn't come from my mind or heart.  Within minutes they allow me to sit with him again.  Still no one answers their phones.  I'm alone with him.  I'm so happy to be back by his side; to hold his cold hand; to pat his warm chest and forehead and tell him how much I love him.  As the doctor and nurses and medics stir around putting equipment away and tossing disposibles, all are crying.  We were a symphony of sniffs and tears and restrained sobs.  It never took any one long to fall in love with Joseph Kennedy. I begin to sob.  The staff left the room telling me to stay as long as I wanted, and each one patting me and affirming their belief that we made the right decision.    I can't take my eyes off my husband...how frail he iss without his life breath or gentle smile at me.  His hair is gray and thining and for the first time he looks his age.  In the wonderful excitement of being newlyweds, I hardly noticed that he was older.  My eyes saw him as he was when we first dated and married many years ago.  Love has forgiving eyesight.

For the first time I really see that we are old...and the aged body is frail; it does not recover, in death, it's normal appearance.  He will never sing again with his beautiful voice; or hold me tight; or slip up behind me while I cook to carress my breasts.  Back to life again without affections normal and needed by human beings.  No more glowing face as he tells folks, in front of me, how he never stopped loving me since the day he met me.  Imagine life without Joe's jokes!  He's gone.  Just like that.  HE, WE, DREAMS, PLANS...GONE!  In an instant...alone but together in devotion and commitment in spite of death.  What is left is our shared faith...the eternal connection of man and woman in Christ.

People begin to arrive and I surrender to fatigue and ask for them to take him to the awaiting van which a nice man came to tell me he had brought for his transportation to the funeral home..."Let me know when you're ready."  The Coroner came and patted my back and offered me his card...condolences...probably a blood clot to the heart from surgery earlier that week, he guessed.

Joe had been in the presence of God for at least a 45 minutes by now.  I was becoming tired and frail feeling, and we stood beside him to leave.  I said to the body on the gurney something like this, "I love you so much Honey, but I know you aren't in there...and so I'm turning around to leave because you aren't here.  I'm not leaving you...you aren't here."

Deep breath...just breathe Linda.  Live like he would be proud of you.

What loveliness will I find here?  Love itself!  Breathe Linda.  Another day for writing, when I am not so tired.  Just breathe

I love you Joe...with all my heart and for the rest of my life.  Every day I have lived on earth was worth having you return to our home.  That's lovely.

For now and for a while I will ponder the loveliness until that day when my feelings become words - and they will.

Just keep breathing, Linda.