I’D WRITTEN THIS A WHILE AGO, WHEN MY DAD WAS ADMITTED TO HAMILTON GENERAL HOSPITAL. AS WE PASS ANOTHER SAD MILESTONE REMEMBRANCE OF HIS PASSING, I’M REPRINTING IT IN HIS MEMORY. WE’RE IN THE MIDST OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS AND HORRIFIC NEWS ABOUT FRAIL SENIORS AND CARE HOMES. IT’S TIMES LIKE THESE THAT MY SENSE OF LOSS IS TEMPERED BY RELIEF HE DID NOT HAVE TO ENDURE THIS.
***
The lights are always dim in the Intensive Care Unit. Whether that’s for the post-surgically frail, the folks in narrow hospital beds staring into the bright light at the mouth of the forever-after tunnel or the terror-numbed visitors, I’m not sure. The muffled rubber squelch of nurses’ shoe soles punctuates the rustling twilight of other people’s lives.
Cocooned by a canary-bright biohazard suit, I’m tethered beside Bed 13, confined to a makeshift cell of striped curtains half a meter short of the floor. My nearly ninety year old father (“he’s dying, you know”, they intone at each check-in) snores unfettered, in a terminal slumber, swaddled under crisp white sheets.
Through a slice of unpulled privacy, I’m eyes-dropping the occupant in Bed 14. I slide my chair to the foot of dad’s bed for a better view. She’s younger – about eighty – and sporting silver earrings that glitter in the spill of pallid light from her bedside lamp. Stroke-twisted, her body is a disarranged husk barely making a bump under a floral duvet. Intravenous bags on floor poles and ceiling-hung rods surround her. A tangle of equipment fills the rest of the space around her mattress – blood gas monitors, fluid regulators, volumetric infusion pumps – a shushing symphony with blinks and clicks. The rippling heart rate monitor display reminds me of a stock market chart. Blood pressure cuffs hiss rhythmically on her biceps. A nasogastric line lies against one fine-grained cheek. A thicker tube is strapped between her lips.
The curtains on the near side of her bed hiss apart. Annie, the sweet-faced respiratory therapist, lisps hello. She straightens sheets and fluffs the feather pillows. “Time to turn you over, Rose.” The bed frame squeaks. “Please, dear, lift your arms for me?” She leans her heavyset body in close, tugging at resistant limbs, scrolling Rose onto her side. “How about a sponge bath?” A whispery reply, barely audible above the sighing machinery. Annie hums as she dips the washcloth in the water and finishes the ablutions. She folds up the towels and bends close. “Dear, I must. It’s time.”
Rose twists away, clutching at the bedrail. Her hand holds what looks like a lace handkerchief. Her pale features eclipsed by distress, her body arches to a shallow parenthesis. She shakes her coiffed snowy head, no, no, no. Annie presses her supine with murmured reassurances. With measured movements, she retrieves a plastic mouth guard from a metal dish and attaches a dark tube from the machine, squeezes the contraption between thumb and forefinger, then slides it between Rose’s bloodless lips, fastening it with two wings of tape on either side.
A lever clicks. The machine throbs to life. Two sounds spill over each other – the sucking, kitchen-sink gulps of the machine and the dialed-down wail of the pulse meters as the electronic undulations jam into tight zigzags. “Breathe deep, Rose, please.” Impaled on the pillow, the old woman subsides. The siphon relentlessly dredges the airways in her thin chest. “Almost done.”
Annie eases off the tape and dabs Rose’s mouth with a fresh cloth. The machine emits a sibilant tremor, churns out a length of white paper tape squiggled with seismic markings, and clicks off.
“Let’s finish up, Rose. Your son said he’d come by.” The old woman mumbles. Her hands flutter like disordered birds. “You want to wear another dressing gown? Here, let’s sit you up.” I turn towards the rustle of footsteps at my back. “See, now. Here he is!” Flushing, Annie is poised with an arm curved under Rose’s insubstantial shoulders, now clad in a jaunty green bed jacket. “Good afternoon, Sir.”
I catch a glimpse of crisp French cuff and a flash of gold at his wrist as he steps closer and sets his right hand on the old woman’s knee. There’s a strong resemblance in the profile of nose and jaw, although his features hold the thick tan of robust health. The voice starts deep and soft and hesitant. “How…how is Mom doing?”
“She’s almost breathing on her own.”
“So we can take the tube out?”
“No, Sir. Not yet, I’m afraid. She’s receiving medicated gases.”
“Look. She hates it.” He’s speaking in his outside voice as he rhythmically strokes his mother’s forearm. “She can’t move much.” He shifts back to a hush.” Please…. She can’t speak. She needs to.”
“I’ll ask the doctor.” The nurse props Rose higher against the pillows, then picks up the basin and towels and nudges the suction machine away with one leg. The curtain rings shush as she sweeps them closed behind her.
The old lady strokes her son’s arm. “I know, Mom. They’ve tied you down. I’m sorry, Mom.” He grasps her fingers and tilts his head back to stare up at the ceiling. Light reflects off the shine of scalp through his curly grey hair. He hunches over the railing and leans his head into the curve of her neck. He whispers against her ear. His shoulders shake but he makes no sound. With the hand that holds the hanky, she pats his back, then the side of his face. She’s crooning those comforting mother-sounds that need no words.
He sighs raggedly and blows his nose. “I have to fly to Montreal tonight, Mom. Gerry will be by after supper.” He sniffs. “You’ll be okay. I know it.” He leans in for a kiss and a press of cheek against cheek again. “Love you.” She presses the cloth to her mouth and coughs, light as a downed sparrow.
The ICU’s murmurations resume. Let it be over. I’ve become a voyeur of passings, bound beside a man who loved me once, but hasn’t known me for years. I rest my ear and then my palm on the steady resonance of his heart. A fleshy metronome. Just that: nothing more.
When I look up again, Rose has turned her empty eyes in my direction. I rear back in my chair at her falcon stare. Her fingers release. The blood-specked hanky flutters to the floor. I turn my face away.
