When I finally sat down

When I finally sat down,

After a year of shuttling back and forth between

Bridgewater and Boston

Between Pelham Terrace and city hospital

Between the brownstone and the grocery store

Between the bank and and the gas station

Between the pharmacy and the kitchen…

After months on the phone

with cousin Lynda in Texas and Aunt Fran in New Hampshire

With primary care physicians and hospital residents,

With surgeons and med students,

With social workers and elder care service intake workers,

 and potential assisted living center directors…

After weeks perched on the edge of the couch trying to listen

Over the sound of the tv turned up loud to compensate for the oxygen machine

Trying to see in the room unlit because “we have to pay for those lights!”

Trying to navigate around the oxygen tubes stretched from first floor to ground floor to 2^nd floor woven through the rails of the stairwell…

After days in the airless and overheated hospital room waiting for answers,

Can you tell us why she is having so much trouble breathing?

She wants to know why her blood needs to be drawn so often; look at her arms!

He does not want any more treatments; he’s done, no more.

In the cafeteria, we have become regulars:

The veggie burgers are good - with cheese -  the coffee is hot, the clam chowder, says Aunt Grace, from Texas, is wonderfulJ

I chat with the orderly who brought Uncle for a CT scan last week;

He helps out in the kitchen when he can, he says. How is your uncle, he asks, better?

The housekeeper who wants to introduce cousin David to her granddaughter, reminds me how beautiful the young woman is; really, she says. How is your aunt?

At bedtime, I ride the elevator down to the lobby with the cashier; we laugh at how we keep meeting at the same time each night. Same time tomorrow, she asks?

He does not want any more treatments; he’s done, no more.

After hours of holding his hand, reading aloud the funnies, and singing songs from the ole days,

We begin cooing:

We love you

We miss you already

But we’ll be ok

And we will take care of auntie

You are a great man and you have done so much good in this world

It’s ok now to let go…

After minutes making “arrangements”

I bring his best, and only, suit, to the funeral home

write the notice for the papers,

pick the casket,

order the flowers

and call the cemetery to ask them to pick the plot:

Wherever it is will be fine, as long as they will be together someday…

After seconds of my chair nestled as close to Auntie’s as possible

The priest reads the prayers honoring his life and asks for eternal rest for his soul

The homily is good, acknowledging our grief and the hope in the mystery to come

At the cemetery, the Navy color guard plays taps and presents the flag.

At Pelham Terrace, the food we bought at Cosco, White’s Bakery, and Pasta Bene is laid out. I drink Italian coffee, and the relatives who stop by for a while get to know one another. It’s been a long time since they have been together.

When I finally sat down,

I opened the window to a mild November air and breathed in the last remaining burst of color from the trees readying for winter’s sleep

Just then, I rested so deeply, in every muscle and thought,

And I realized

that all that had come before this moment was a gift

That all that work of love had

led to this one breath of rest

and the next breath too

When I finally sat down

I knew that a full life consists of both work and rest

And that neither can exist without the other…

For how deep would my rest be if I hadn’t work so hard?

What a bore it would be to just sit

What a cheap gift without the effort?

And so when I finally sat down

I cried with grief and gratitude and amazement at this life

And its gifts.