The End of Her

The End of Her

She had taken to staring at the corners of her room. Eerily, she would stop talking and look, right over your shoulder toward the nearest corner to you and just…stare. One time as I was greeting her upon entering her room, she suddenly turned her head away from my voice and with that beautiful smile of hers, gave the cheeriest “hello” to some invisible person. Now this might upset some folk. They might assume that she was having a “moment”. You know, like the moments that they attribute to dementia or Alzheimer’s, when the sufferer slips in and out of the current time to visit some era past. But not so with her. I always had the feeling…no the understanding that she knew exactly what time it was and exactly who she was talking to. Whether or not she invited you into the conversation was another matter.

“Who you talking to Momma?” “Him”, she answered. “Him”, I asked. “He knows who he is and that is all you need to know.” She looked at me then and gave me that big cheery smile. Her voice was weakening. Some days it came out as a whisper. Today she seemed strong. She bade me to come and sit on the corner of her bed. Turn around, she said, so I can get a real good look at you. She had taken to staring at the people that visited her. Not much conversation, but much staring.

That look of hers was unnerving. It really was as if she was looking right into you. Into your very soul…at the essence of you. Those steel grey eyes would make a quiet assessment of the total of you! It was that kind of look. After an uncomfortable silence, she spoke. “I have got to talk to you about the end of me, she said. This…this lump you see here is not who I am, not who I was even. I have had successes and failures such as life has handed all living people. So much goes into the who we claim to be. Do you understand?” “Yes ma’am, I understand. Shall I record this?”

I have been visiting her every day for the last month, recording her thoughts and stories. She wanted to have a volume, a chronicle of her life to share with her grands and great grands. Advice she would never give them, suggestions she would never tell them. A herstory she called it. She would ask for a family member to come in and asked me to make two recordings. One that they could keep for themselves and another to add to the herstory. Each encounter started the same way. She would tell them to sit down, ask how they were doing, inquire about their current events, and then she would give them her message. Afterwards, amid many tears, she would tell them how much she loved them. She would then send them on their way saying goodbye…goodbye is final she would remind them, so I am saying goodbye. This final line would open a floodgate followed by a flurry of apologies, hugs, and kisses. These meetings went on for weeks. Punctuated by an occasional visit from an invisible.

The ambulance came at 3:17 in the morning. I only know the time because she has a big digital clock in her room that casts a reddish glow when all the lights are out. I hate that clock. It beckons to me to look at it whenever I go into her room. This early morning, however, I notice the clock is …the numbers that mark the seconds has sped up. Way faster than the “Mississippi’s I was reciting in my head. But there was something else about that clock. My husband placed his hand on my shoulder, and I turned, startled by his touch.

A stroke. I stand in the hallway outside of the hospital room and wait for the doctor to come back. I hear her voice, like a whisper. “Come in here. You got your recorder?” “What...”

“Don’t what me, Chile. You got it?” “Yes, Ma’am.” “This is the last time I’m going to talk to you.” “Don’t say that, Ma…Naw, don’t play with me. We have never played like this.” “Listen and record what I say. I got two stories to tell you. One is yours, the other is mine. You ready?” I nod my head, and lean in to hear it all.

She tells me so many things about me and her. What she saw, what she wanted, how she prayed for me. She talked about being strong and how she was satisfied that she taught me that. Prayers answered, goals met, she was proud of who I had become…”but I had no choice”, I tried to tell her. “I come from good stock.” “Ok”, she said. She talked on and on til her mouth was dry. “Let me have some water.” “Ma, you need to rest a while.” “No, gotta finish.” She says.

My face is so wet, I’ll have to change my shirt soon. She calls for my husband. Kisses him. Hugs him saying thank you. Goodbye. You understand she asks him. Thank you and goodbye. I can see he doesn’t want to let her go, but she breaks the embrace. She stares into him, pats him on the arm and says bye, baby.

“You get all that? Yes Ma’am”, I gurgle thru my tears. “Go get me a 7Up. Go get it, now.” She says in her gentle forcefulness. When I come back, she is staring at the corner. I bend the straw to her lips. I’ve learned that nothing she says in the next few moments are directed to me. I check the recording app on my phone and start a new session. I sit and wait.

“Um hmmm. Yeah, I see ya. You were supposed to wait, at the house. Naw, you did not. You woke me up and made me look. I had another story, but you got impatient and would not wait. You woke me. I’m an old lady. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, nah. She shouts. Then you made me look! My nerves got all twisted up and I, I, I…You knew what would happen. What you mean you hoped, that’s like cheating, you aint fair. You aint right. I’m going home. I’m going to finish my story and then we will see.”

She sat right up. The wires on her chest straining. That little finger monitor flew off. “I am going home. Then we will see, like I said.” She lays down, her breathing becomes labored. All the monitors are going off. She closes her eyes.

The staff rushed in, pushing me out. The heart monitor bleeps erratically…then flatlines…I turn my recorder off and stand in terror watching them. Someone says something about a DNR. They look at me for a tic and I nod my head emphatically. Clear! Bleep, bleep, bleep…

She opens her eyes in the ICU. They flutter, like when you get an irritant in them. She turns her head and looks right at me. I am thankful that I am there. “Come here”, she whispers. “Got your recorder?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Listen. They came to get me several times. But I always fight. I would win against those ugly little minions. Told them to tell your boss if you want me. Ha-ha. I wasn’t scared, just not ready. Do you understand this? Yes Ma’am. Ok. So finally, those minions got tired of getting they head rubbed and looking like a fool, I guess. So, they went and got him. We wrestled too. I would fight him til my moment passed, and he got summoned to someone else. So, I talked him into an agreement. Told him He leave me alone til I saw all my family and then we’ll see. So, he says alright. That’s when all hell broke loose…for me anyway. He started taking yall.” Wait, what? “Yeah…she breathed…. As long as I was telling my stories and he could listen in, he’d let me be. But he got tired of playing with me. Thought that I was outsmarting him…showed me that clock. With each second on that clock, I felt my time slipping away. You understand, I could feel me going and I got scared. That’s why I’m in here…”

She talked and talked and talked. Talked of all her being. Talked til they made me leave the ICU. “Ok”, she finished. “That’s it. You got it, chile?” “Yes, Ma’am.” “Come here. Let me look at you. I love you, Honeychile, thank you, goodbye.” “I love you too, Momma.” I turn to walk away. I don’t want to witness the end of her. But I look back over my shoulder anyway. I see her being lifted as if invisible hands were cradling her for a kiss. She whispers, “cheater”, the monitor sounds that long wailing bleep.

My husband approached from behind. I didn’t hear him over the noise. “That’s the last of her things, Babe. Everything’s packed up and ready to go. What chu doin’?” I had sat on the floor in the emptied-out room that momma spent the last years of her life in. With the heel of my shoe, I was smashing that clock to smithereens…”Huh, What? Oh, I’m just killing some time.”