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.