The Final Days (May 17, 2023)

Holding hands on a train in Japan, 2019

 

It's been one year since I last held Scott's hand. Letting go of his hand for the last time was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

The last picture of Scott and me is also the last time he kissed me. A kind hospice chaplain had stopped by and asked us to tell her a little bit about ourselves. She prayed for us and ended with the Lord's Prayer. I started saying it along with her, and to my surprise I heard Scott saying it next to me as well. He had started to lose awareness of his surroundings and I wasn't sure what he could understand, but he recited the entire prayer without a hitch. We kissed and the chaplain immediately said, "Well, I have to take a picture of that." She insisted on it, so I handed her my phone and we kissed again as she took a picture. I won't share it here because Scott had lost a lot of weight by then and it might make people sad to see him in his final days. But the main thing I see in that picture is undying love. Scott looks calm and present in the moment. I look like I know this might be our last kiss. It's hard to look at the photo, but that moment felt sacred and the fact that it was captured feels a bit miraculous.

Vicki got a recording stethoscope and recorded Scott's heartbeat one evening. The heartbeat was a bit erratic but to me it thumped with verve, as if to insist, "I am still alive." Scott was always one to do things in his own way, and he went down fighting. Despite the deteriorating lab results, Vicki observed that Scott's organs were functioning like real troopers and in her medical opinion, he was an "incredible specimen of a man."

In the end, Scott passed away peacefully. It was late in the evening, and I played his favorite music and held him and told him that I would always love him, and that it was OK to let go. He had fought so hard to stay with us, even as he lost consciousness. When I asked the hospice nurse why that was, she said it was because he was still young and vital, and it is hard to leave your whole family and that it might help if we told him that it was OK to let go. Scott's breathing had been erratic earlier in the day, but it stabilized in the evening and I remember thinking that he would probably make it to the next day.

I stepped into the bathroom for a few minutes to get ready for bed. I have no idea where the feeling came from, but as I was brushing my teeth I suddenly felt like Scott was leaving. I rushed back to his bedside and just as I reached it, I saw him take one last breath. It came out as a deep sigh, as if he were setting down a great burden, and at the same time thinking, "Well...here goes." I waited and watched a few more moments and saw only stillness. I took a few minutes to hold him one last time and say my goodbyes. Then I called for the nurse and the family.

I hope Scott knew that we were there with him in those last few days when he lost consciousness, and that he could feel our love. I saw how brave he was when he knew the end was near. His love stayed strong to the end.