Stuff

Stuff

During a six week period of time, my brother and a long-time friend had died.  One I was somewhat prepared for; the other was a total shock.

The first four weeks were hell.  In the first two weeks, I had so much anger when my brother died that I pretty much just sat on the sofa.  Didn't eat much. didn't sleep much.  I had the TV on for distraction, but anything sad to the slightest degree would make me cry.  I had many phone calls to make and found it very difficult to speak without my voice quivering.  I understand that my feelings were attributed to leftover grief from my son's deaths and my mom a few years ago.  My family members, for some odd reason, are anti-grieving.  There was no discussion of sadness or feelings with them to ease my pain, so I am now dealing with all of my feelings.  I hate it.  Because I don't seem to have control over it.  I know it will fade in time, but for now, it sucks.  I'm referring to a family loss.

Two weeks after my brother died, my friend Connie died, totally unexpectedly.  It was, I believe, the straw that broke the camel's back.  My brother had been in bad health for years, but Connie was active and vibrant and fun and loving.  She was taken away from her family by human error, and it was tragic.  She went to the hospital to have a surgical procedure done, a short recovery period, and a sent home.  Someone's mistake took her life.  One of those people that think they are God screwed up and took her life.  She is gone forever.  I find that unacceptable.

The last two weeks have been a little easier, or so I thought.  Then I got pages and pages of paperwork to fill out on my brother, and I hit the brick wall again.  I found out that he was not even cremated until last Monday.  Over a month after his death.  Why?  A doctor refused to sign his death certificate, the cause of death, and permission for cremation.  Why?  Nobody seems to be able to answer that.  I don't know who the doctor was; I don't know if he was from the hospital, hospice, or the quack doctor from the nursing home.  And at this moment in time, I can't force myself to fight that battle yet.  Someday he will be buried with military honors whenever the system quits screwing around with the poor guy.  But not yet.  So, I am sitting on the sofa again, contemplating the same two people's deaths still.  I have questions about Connie, but I don't have the right to even ask them, so I guess I will maybe find out some details over time.

Every day I have a plastic hospital bag of my brother's possessions staring at me.  I brought them home from the hospital the evening before he died.  I knew he was going to die that evening, so I took them.  I have looked in that bag only one time.  That was at the hospital before I left his room.  His worldly goods consisted of a red sweatshirt and a watch.  No pants.  They sent him to the hospital without pants.  Because he had dementia and Alzheimers and he was old and sick, they didn't really think that it made any difference if he was treated with even a shred of respect.  After all. He didn't belong to them anymore; they knew he would die because they failed to send him to the hospital when he was so ill until they called me, and I demanded it.  Now they would have another bed, another place to put someone and provide minimal care.  Just put him in the ambulance with a blanket over him; he doesn't deserve pants.

And I have the bag of stuff. Sitting on my table.  I don't want to touch it, not yet, maybe after his cremains are buried if that ever happens.  I glance at that bag and wonder, is that all any of us get at the end of a longish life, just a small bag of stuff? Nothing that shows who we were or what we did or what we believed in?

Two conversations that I had with professional people, one nurse for the State of Tennessee, and a doctor in charge of his care at the hospital, left me with a lack of respect for either of them.  The doctor stated that there was nothing more they could do for him, he wasn't in a coma, he wasn't brain dead, he had sepsis, and they had nothing more they could do for him.  In other words, give us permission to do nothing more than sedate him and provide him with oxygen until he dies.  He has health issues, and he is old, so can we just cut it short and let him die?  The nurse for the state basically said the same thing.  He was frail and old, and it was to be expected.  No. it was not expected that he would get sepsis, and they did not treat him appropriately for it, so he died because of failure to care for him adequately.  I think they wanted to avoid the fact that they had no explanation for not getting him emergent care for a deadly illness.

And I am left with an ugly bag of two items representing his last days.  Stuff.  Every time I accidentally glance at it, I feel insurmountable sadness that 70 years of life on earth equates to a twisted up plastic bag of stuff.  Impersonal, cold, ugly, reality, I guess.

I don't like it.  I don't like it at all.  My time is coming; maybe yours is, too. Perhaps we should all think about the stuff we leave behind.