The Stairway to Heaven: Allison's Journey

It started as any other Monday. I snuck out of my room to go to the bathroom and saw her waiting patiently on the couch. She and Phyllis were getting ready to head out for the day. I looked at Alli, and she gave me that “don’t get in my way I’m on a schedule, and you aren’t a part of it” look. I got that most every weekday morning because Alli did have a schedule. Her day-program took her all around the area reading to pre-school children, visiting the elderly, making crafts with her friends and so much more. Mondays were the best days for her – unlike the rest of us who dread them. For Allison it meant freedom from the house and the ability to just be herself.

That same day, I decided to take the Mount Washington Auto Road to the summit. I really wanted one of those “This car climbed Mt. Washington” bumper stickers. Let’s face it – I was never going to climb it on my feet! With spectacular views laid out in front of me, I explored the summit making sure to capture not only with my senses but also on film. I gazed at the Presidential range, searched for what I thought had to be Squam Lake and tried to figure out how to get a picture of myself near the summit sign. (I never did ask anyone to take my picture. I just felt that if I didn’t climb it on foot then I didn’t deserve that picture.)

On my way down the mountain, I saw the most beautiful rays of sunshine shimmering down from the clouds. It reminded me of the rays I had seen through the window at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I had called them the stairway to heaven, and this scene looked similar, yet somehow even more beautiful as the golden rays peeked through white puffy clouds instead of windows. I stopped at one of the turn offs to cool my brakes. I kept having flashbacks of the road to our beach house in Brazil and how if you weren’t careful, you could lose your brakes – which I did once, so I decided to be extra vigilant this time.

I finally saw some signal on my phone and noticed there was a message. My mom’s friend Pat had called to let me know that Allison had had a pretty bad seizure, and they were taking her to the hospital. She asked me to head back as soon as I got this message and to meet my parents at Speare Memorial. I thought nothing of it at the time. Allison had had seizures before, and especially when they last longer than five minutes, we liked to take her to the hospital to make sure everything was okay. I never thought this situation would be any different. I called Pat anyway, just to clarify the situation, and she confirmed what she had said on the message.

“Everything is fine, but I think your mom would like you by her side. Drive carefully, okay. My son was just up there, and you have to come down slowly.”

“Will do,” I had already planned on going slowly and then stopping at the rest area on the bottom to make sure my brakes cooled down as much as possible.

As I said, we had been through this before – a seizure requiring hospitalization – but after my phone call to Pat, I couldn’t help but feel that this was different. I texted my mom that I had gotten the message and was on my way. As I continued down the mountain, my anxiety level grew. My hands grasped the wheel so tightly that I could see that the blood had left them. They began to go numb, but I kept on driving. Just a little more, I kept saying to myself. At one point, I decided to go a little bit further between stops. As soon as I pulled over the smoke billowed out from underneath my Trailblazer. The smell of burning rubber seeped into the car, and I knew I had to wait for a while before trying again. I texted my mom with a new update. No response.

Finally, I reached the bottom but knew I needed to wait at least twenty minutes for my brakes to cool. In reality I probably should have waited an hour, but that time frame did not work for me. I stopped in the restroom and splashed water on my face. I browsed around the gift shop watching the minutes tick away slowly. Ever so slowly.

I jumped back into my car and started the journey to Plymouth. I had already texted my mom again – no response. That is when I knew. I know my parents well enough to realize that no response meant the news would upset me enough to endanger my driving. I kept trying to think of other things – maybe I would see a moose. That would have been really cool. I hoped that when I got to the hospital mom and dad would have already taken Allison home, and she and I will sit on the couch and watch Seinfeld bloopers. She’ll need rest and relaxation after a seizure like this.

I grew more and more anxious as I passed the exits on I-93. I concentrated so hard on my speed and steering. Oh, I sped – make no mistake about that, but I figured that if I followed all of the other rules maybe the cops wouldn’t notice me. My stomach started to feel queasy as I exited the highway. I planned on not seeing my mom’s car in the ER parking lot, certain that they had already been discharged. I had tried to convince myself that this situation was like all of the others, when deep inside I knew that it wasn’t.

Before I even put my car in park, my Aunt Suzi appeared at my door. Her face said it all. She shook her head and that’s all I needed.

“No…no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I wailed as my eyes opened wide and tears cascaded down my cheeks much like the water in the falls I had passed while driving through Franconia Notch. I couldn’t stop saying it. My nephew, Hayden, always repeated no so many times when he was younger. I thought that it was so cute as he was just learning to communicate. Now I understand that sometimes your brain is so full that it is the only word that makes sense.

My whole body shook as I walked into the hospital and pulled open the door of the Emergency wing. I heard nothing. The white walls and fluorescent lights blinded me. I saw my dad; he was crying so hard. I wrapped him in my arms, knowing that this pain was forever. It may lessen with time, but it will never go away. He looked at me through red swollen eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I had to tell them to stop.” They had worked on Allison for more than an hour trying to resuscitate her. My parents had to give the okay to stop.

“Of course you did,” I answered. “It was time.”

“We didn’t want her to be in a vegetative state,” my mom whispered. I folded her into my arms as well hoping to give comfort that just wasn’t there – not right then anyway.

They pulled the curtains aside, and there she lay with Teddy Ruxpin tucked under the sheet with her. “This is not her favorite Teddy,” I immediately pointed out.

No one said anything because we all knew it wasn’t her favorite. Her favorite Teddy only had one eye, and it was well on its way out. Alli had already poked out the other eye, ripped off his nose and mouth, as well as broken its neck. It looked like a monster from beyond, so of course it was not appropriate to bring him out in public. We all stared at each other keeping that special secret. “Monster Teddy” proudly sits on my bed at home in all of his creepy glory.

“Wow.” I finally broke the silence. It was all I had. As an English teacher and life-long talker/comedian, you would think that I could come up with something better than that, but I couldn’t. My heart was breaking in my chest, and I could feel it leaking onto Alli’s hospital bed.

I looked around at everyone in the room - my parents, Suzi, Phyllis, her husband, Dave, and Laurie (Alli’s afternoon care giver); it dawned on me. They waited for me to get there before doing anything else. They had sat with her for I don’t know how long (and have never asked) and waited for me to be able to see her. I hugged her and kissed her and fluffed her hair. I looked under the sheets because for some reason I needed to remember what she wore that day. I begged to be able to stay - the thought of leaving her here alone was more than I could bear. We had been through this enough times that I knew what came next – Elliot would have to come and get her to take her to his funeral home. The staff just waited for us to give the okay, and they would call him.

“When you were on the mountain, she flew by you,” my mom stated. “She knew you were there, and she wanted to see you.”

I remembered the “stairway to heaven” on my drive down the mountain. The sparkling gold beams and the pillowy white clouds. My mom was right. Allison’s spirit had climbed to heaven right in front of me.

“We’ll stay as long as you want,” my dad said.

It was a moot point really, as I never wanted to leave. I had planned my future around caring for Allison when the time came. I prepared for the decisions I would have to make and the trips we would certainly take. I wanted to take her to Las Vegas for her 30th birthday. I knew she had gotten overwhelmed when we tried gambling before, but Vegas just seemed like the right thing to do when you turn thirty. I wanted to take her to a Bon Jovi concert, something I knew my dad would never allow. We could get special seating for her and hopefully it would have been far enough away from the stage that her eardrums would be safe. I know what you are thinking…if she can’t do the whole gambling thing then how can she go to a concert with all of those lights and special effects? Well, I hadn’t gotten to the logistics part of the plan. We would be “the aunts” – inseparable…one and the same.

We left the hospital understanding that others still had work to do before they could release Alli’s body. We had to call people. No one really wanted to because that meant Alli’s death had actually happened. In the end, life in a small town took care of it for us. Most everyone had already heard when we called them.

That first night kicked our butts. We just sat there looking at each other and crying. Very few words were spoken. Carol and Don drove up from Hooksett – they had just left our house that morning and were completely shocked by the news. They just added to the staring. For a group of people who rarely sat quietly, you would think that it was an awkward silence. It wasn’t. We all sat alone with our memories but together in our grief. In a strange way, the silence comforted us.

The next few days flew by in a haze of commotion. We had to meet with the funeral director, call my brother, who was working on a special project for the Coast Guard and happened to be on a glacier in Greenland, and welcome friends who looked at us in disbelief. I made phone calls, answered phone calls and tried to keep myself together.

The calling hours passed in a sea of people. Sure, we all had friends and colleagues come to comfort us, but the amount of love and tenderness from those who worked or went to school with Alli far outweighed the rest. The principal of her high school, the superintendents of both Plymouth and Ashland, aides, nurses, friends the list was endless. I knew she had touched others, but the extent of her effect on people overwhelmed us.

By Saturday, August 17, 2013, the day for the funeral had arrived. My brother, Rob, had made it safely from Greenland. We met with Father Leo, picked pallbearers and arranged the music. In the end, all that was left to do was finish writing the eulogy and deliver it without bursting into tears.

During my last meeting with Alli, at the funeral home before Elliot shut the casket, I had already decided to let the tears flow. It was important for me to release it all before going to the church, as I had an important job to do. I leaned over the casket, kissed her forehead and told her that I would do right by her. I wanted the legacy of her amazing smile, unconditional love and acceptance to live far beyond her twenty-seven years.