Death Watch
We've been standing a death watch since fall.
Back in the fall-- I can't remember any more whether it was October or November, but it was before Thanksgiving-- a beloved aunt on my mother's side of the family suffered a massive stroke. She's never entirely woken up since. Last Thursday, she had another stroke, which left her unable to swallow. She hasn't had any sustenance since, but is still hanging on-- she's a hardy one, God love her-- but it's only a matter of time.
It's tempting to say "the waiting is the worst part," but that's not true. The waiting is wrenching, to be sure-- days spent knowing that the next time the phone rings, it will probably be bad news-- but the worst part is knowing that she'll be gone forever. With her will go an irreplaceable bit of the family-- her cantankerous attitude, her exclusive love of terrible American beer (you could get her to drink Heineken, but only by telling her it was Rolling Rock), her utter inability to remember my mother's name (despite my mother being her favorite niece)-- all the little jokes and bits of history that help tie us together. In some sense, she's been gone since fall-- her existence since then has hardly been living-- but the finality of her actual death will still be a blow. And with it will come all the little unhelpful aftershocks of grief, American style: the ghoulish spectacle of "calling hours," the funeral itself, the awkward conversations with relatives last seen years ago in happier circumstances. But for now, what we've got is the waiting.
I'm not even getting the worst of it-- I'm two hundred miles away, with a wife, a job, and a new house to keep me distracted. My grandmother has been there, in the hospital, waiting, every day for months. I don't think I'd have the strength for that. Waiting on the phone in Schenectady is almost more than I can take.
And, of course, the strain of the waiting is only heightened by current events. Yeah, I know, it's tacky as hell to exploit personal tragedy for political commentary, but I can't help it. The slow slide to war is an inescapable part of the background to this death watch, and the waiting is, in turn, a part of the background of the war. I can't separate the two, any more than I can peel the first Gulf War free from the context of my sophomore year in college, or recall those hazy drunken days without hearing CNN in the background.
They're similar in many ways, and they feed into and off of each other. Each of them is a painful waiting process, hanging by the phone or the tv or the radio waiting for the inevitable bad news. My dread of the next phone call from home only increases my dread of the next news report, and the drums in the deep marking the march to war only make waiting by the phone feel worse. Neither of these situations can end well-- oh, there's a chance that Saddam could skip town, and opt to live out his days on an obscure island in the South Pacific. There's also a chance that Jesus Christ his own self will pop up on Long Island and heal my aunt. The two are about equally likely.
And as with our personal death watch, the worst part of our national death watch isn't the waiting. The waiting is bad, yes, but the worst is yet to come-- the worst part is the sure knowledge that with the start of this unprovoked war, with the unleashing of the monstrous scheme to "shock and awe" Iraq, a little part of what makes me proud to be an American will die and be gone forever.
But for now, there's nothing but the waiting. All I can do is sit in my office in a constant state of dread, whether of the phone ringing or the next radio news break. I can't quite tell any more. A sudden loud noise might make my head explode.
I hate this.
Update: We got the expected phone call at about 6:00 this evening. She died sometime this afternoon. I don't know any more details than that, but really, what else is there to know?
Posted at 10:45 AM | link | follow-ups |