The conclusion of 4/28 through 5/2/2006

The Conclusion to 4/28/2006 through 5/2/2006

I am not really certain why I felt compelled to write about Bruce’s death.  Maybe it was because it has been 10 years.  Maybe it was because my kids are at such different places and I wanted them to have a history to show their kids.  Possibly because I am not good at being vulnerable and writing was my way of being a little vulnerable. Truthfully, I can’t say.

There have been many messages sent to me with offers of prayers and well wishes.  All are appreciated.  I need to fast forward to now.  Many of you may like to hear that we have put Bruce’s death into perspective.

When someone dies it seems that the negatives are minimized and the good times are magnified.  That is just the way it is.  We all think of Bruce.  We laugh at some of his escapades.

I see Bruce in my sons.  I see his sister in my daughter.  My second son is a clone of him.  He has mastered his walk, speech and mannerisms. It will sometimes catch me off guard.  My oldest son has a lot of Bruce in him.  He is somewhat of a dreamer, as was Bruce.  I am so happy that Bruce got to the kids grow up. 

The things that Bruce’s early death made him miss?  First and foremost, grandchildren.  I do believe that he would have excelled in being a “pap-pap”, as Lily calls him.  I am sure that he would have had the grandchildren fishing and skiing.  There is no doubt that he would have embraced Jack’s name.  Jack is to date the only grandson.  Bruce is his middle name.  I’m also certain that he would have loved the sweetness of Lily and Maisie, and the spunkiness of Caroline. 

When Meg was married, Chris gave a toast.  One part of it was recognizing that his dad would have loved Jonathan.  He surely would have.  The only sadness of that day was seeing Meg walked down the aisle (which was called the great lawn) with her brothers and not her dad.  He would love Angela, although she might have to learned how to take Bruce.  Chris’ sidekick, Katie would have won Bruce’s heart too.  All in all, he would have been pleased with the family he created the kids and the grandchildren. 

Me?  I got very fortunate.  I have a good guy, Tim.  He is my best buddy.  We enjoy together our kids and grandkids.  He is their Timpa.  Lily will say that his job is to keep her safe and make sure that she is happy.  I tell Lily that we are her parent’s B team.  We are both right.

Tim is the polar opposite of Bruce.  He is patient.  Bruce was not.  He is not a selfish man, Bruce was.  He is not stubborn, Bruce was.  I am happy, very happy that we are walking through life together.  My life is much easier now.

Bruce’s relatives have embraced Tim.  They let him know every time we see them that he is part of their family.  It is so good to know that they support Tim and me.  My family?  I will just say that Bruce’s family has gone out of their way to make him comfortable. 

The years are marching by and memories of Bruce G. Parke will live on.  Sometimes I realize the magnitude of my life with Bruce and the reality of those five days in 2006 that changed things so much. 

Bruce's mom?  She is still alive, but the pain of her losing Bruce has never lessened. 

I am hopeful that this blog reaches people and helps them realize that we can all get through so much more than we think.  If one person can find strength in these words.  I consider it a success. After you go through such a tragedy, you will find the strength to breathe again.

The End....Theda K. Parke 

I hope that if nothing else, this story can be helpful to at least one person who finds themselves in a similar situation.  After you go through the movements, there is a time that you will breathe.

May 2, 2006. Part 5

I knew that I wanted to stay at the hospital overnight.   The nurses buzzed around.  They were constantly watching Bruce’s monitors.  They bathed him and massaged lotion on him. They made sure his hair was washed and combed.  The nurses shaved him.  They chatted to me trying to figure out the family since there always seemed to be a steady flow of people coming to see him/us.

Please let me first say that I am sort of unclear about the time line of this morning.  I’m not sure that the kids were with me when we discussed the schedule or if it was Ron and me.  Nonetheless, there was a timeline created.  Bruce would be taken off of life support.  Tuesday, May 2, 2006.  All of the tubes and apparatus were going to be removed around noon. 

Looking back, I can’t remember if I was relieved for Bruce or sadder for us.  I suspect I was too numb to process this day.  People who know me, know that I hold and hide emotions pretty well.  Trust me, if you put my kids into this equation, I definitely do.  That day, above everything else I needed to be a mom first.

The only young death in my family was an uncle who was killed in Vietnam.  I was 6.  I have distinct memories of that time.   Having said that, there were huge differences.  My kids were all adults.  There were no good bye’s for my uncle but we had a few days to process everything.

Bruce’s mom and other children, minus his sister, were coming in. All in all, the people who were there that day were all people who should have been there.  The constant flow of people stopped.  From my side of the family, I only recall 2 of my nieces.  There might have been more.  I remember them in particular because they asked the day before if I wanted them to be there.  I did.  These gals were close to Bruce and my kids.  I knew that they wanted to be a support system. 

At 12:00 noon, the doctor walked into the room.  The family, with the exception of me left.  Tubes were removed.  In a matter of minutes, Bruce looked as though he was peacefully sleeping.  He was breathing on his own.  At 12:15 he was situated and the clock was started.

Bruce’s mom made it perfectly clear that she wanted to say good bye to Bruce.  After that she was going to leave.  She was not going to watch her son die.  I could not imagine the pain she was feeling.  Her “best looking” son was dying.  Her last baby was dying.  I wanted him to look comfortable for her, so I was at the side of him and had my arm under his neck, which prevented his head from going back.  She came in and hugged him, held his hand for a couple of minutes and kissed him goodbye.  She left to go home and sit by her phone.

The kids came in, two of his brother’s came in.  The third took his mom home.  Some of our nieces and nephews came in.  It was a day of pure sadness and complete unknown.

Hours passed.  I think there was an unconscious need for people to nervously come in and out of the room.  His nurse for the day came in about every 15 minutes to see if we needed anything.  Her name was Kelly Smith.  She was young.  I remember at one point I asked her how hard this assignment for her day was.  Her answer was, “It is my privilege to be part of something so huge that changes the dynamics of a family.”  She also said that the staff as a whole had talked about the number of relatives and friends who were obviously all an important part of Bruce’s life. 

As I have said, we both came from bigger families and I think that when that is the case, we kind of lose sight of the reality that many families would only have 2 or 3 people with them for support.

Hour by hour, I stood on Bruce’s right side with my arm under his head.  I remember the twitching that started in his thumb had progressed to his face.  At some point he started to snore.  That was extremely unsettling to all of us.

I’m not sure how many people have been in this situation watching someone die.  But Bruce still had a monitor attached for heartrate, pulse, and respiration.  I know that I quickly became obsessed with looking on them to see if he was inching toward death.  When he would snore though, his respiration would raise to normal numbers.

At some point, my second son came in and said that he had said his goodbyes and was going to just stay in the waiting room.  Greg is an emotional guy, so this made perfect sense.  I was a firm believer in allowing everyone involved to do what they needed to do. 

Kelly, the nurse, would chat with us.  She said that when her grandmother was dying, she was in nursing school and wanted to be there.  She left for a quick minute to microwave popcorn.  Her grandmother died in that quick moment.  She referred to it as the “popcorn effect”. 

We were into this process for about 5 hours and Bruce was maintaining life without assistance.  I was getting stressed.  I think that all involved knew the expected outcome of the day.  The thought of extending the inevitable was scary. 

The nurse kept changing his positioning, mainly to stop the snoring. 

At 6:15, I looked at 2 of Bruce’s brother’s, his sister in law, and I think one of his nieces were around the bed.  I hadn’t left his side.  He was getting a temperature.  When I took my arm out from around his neck, my entire sleeve was wet.  I told everyone that I wanted to go to the waiting room and see what the kids were doing.  I wanted to make sure that they were ok.  As ok as they could be. 

I walked out of the room and out of the CCU.  The waiting room was just a few steps away from the unit.  I walked into the waiting room as the phone rang.  It was nurse Kelli asking for me.  Bruce had died. 

Bruce was a stubborn guy.  I am somewhat stubborn.  This was the final proof that he was more stubborn than me.

Seeing someone go from very alive to death in a matter of 5 days is unbelievably hard.  Watching your kids lose their dad is a painful thing for a mom to watch.  From start to finish it is an exhausting, painful process. 

There was a memorial service for Bruce on Saturday.  Bruce’s sister was there despite her recent surgery.  There were more than 200 people there.  Most shocking was the number of my kids friends who flew in to attend.  These kids put forth a lot of effort and money to support their Parke friends. 

Before I conclude this 5- day blog, I need to tell you two more things.

When we all filed out of the hospital after Bruce’s death, we all went across town to another hospital to spend time with Bruce’s sister who had been sick.  She was going to have surgery early Wednesday morning.  We all filed into her hospital room and stayed for hours.  That hospital was so nice to her.  They knew that her brother was taken off life support that day.  They made sure she didn’t have a roommate.  When we all got there, they brought in chairs and drinks.  They really did go above and beyond for her and the family.

The last thing that I wanted to say was that my mom was home and wide awake when we got there.  She wanted to simply know that her daughter and three of her grandkids were as ok as we could be.  Proof of once a mom is always a mom regardless of our age.

5/1/2006 Part 4

I woke up again around 3:30 and got dressed and went to the lobby of the hotel.  I called Sandy again.  I was overwhelmed with the reality of what was happening.  I didn’t know what I was going to do with someone’s ashes.  I knew the idea of bringing them home was not going to happen.

When I got to the hospital and took my mother-in-law’s seat I realized that the clock was ticking.  Not only was his thumb still quivering, but his arm and shoulder was as well.  The nurse essentially said that his nerves and muscles were shorting out.

Everyone started gathering and taking their places.  Relatives and friends stopping in.  At one point somehow, and I don’t remember specifically how we learned that Bruce’s mom was hoping for a better outcome.  However, it was, Ron, Chris and I had another meeting with the doctors and they agreed to run another series of tests.   The tests were run.  The results were the same.  The reality was Bruce was brain dead and being kept alive by machines.

As I said, Bruce’s sister was sick.  She was now in another hospital in Pittsburgh.  We had hoped that she would have been well enough to come one last time.  That wasn’t possible.

I knew that a lot of people were calling and asking to stop by.  I certainly was not going to forbid anyone from coming. If they felt they needed to see him again, they should come.

Many of them did.  Friends stopped by. A few more relatives stopped by.  I remember thinking that this was a viewing, only the person was still alive, technically at least.We found time in the day to laugh about many of the antics Bruce provided through his life.  We talked about him and his list of sports.  The thing about Bruce and sports was that if he did it, he did it well.  Also, if he told a joke or a story, they were told well.  We shared lots of stories about the life of Bruce.We all knew the reality of taking him off life support was looming over our heads.  Sometime in the afternoon it was decided that the next day we were taking him off of life support.  This terrified me.  The doctors said that at this point his heart was strong.  In theory his organs were shutting down, but what happened if after they took him off life support, he lived?What would happen?  What would his quality of life be? Would he be put into a nursing home?  How long would he be able to survive?  No matter how I dissected the options, none of them were good.

That afternoon everyone was on edge, trying to emotionally absorb what we were desperately trying not to.  Ron and many of the young people went to a restaurant out of the hospital, but close by.  They ate and had a few drinks. At some point a group of doctors, along with their support squad came to discuss the schedule.  It was decided that the following day would be the day.

When I think back on how much of a routine this seemed to be, it’s staggering.  It surely takes a special group of people to help families work through such life and death situations.

These nurses and doctors shared such great compassion and care with each of us.  Clearly, Bruce was the patient, but the nurses made sure we were all being taken care of.

I knew that I was at the hospital for the duration.  The kids could go to the hotel and sleep.  My post was at the hospital.  I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep so I might as well sit there and put things into perspective. As people trickled out, a few of my nieces asked if I wanted or needed them to be there the following day.  I absolutely did. Ron and Greg had a bit too much fun when they went to eat so Ron was staying with me at the hospital.  It was going to be a horribly long night and an even longer, more difficult day to follow….