Time in a Bottle
My father spent seven weeks on a ventilator in a Kansas City, Missouri ICU dying. We all knew this was not the life he wanted. He had a living will which said so. But Missouri did not recognize living wills. He had no right to die in that state. So he was held in suspension in some place between life and death.
And so were we. Our lives revolved around the ICU waiting room. With other's whose loved ones were held hostage. We waited for the bad news which could set us free. And we crocheted and knitted, and worked crossword puzzles in increasingly larger book collections of same. And I drove back and forth from work and hospital and my parent's home where I slept fitfully if at all. And the FM radio station my car radio was tuned to seemed to always play Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle.
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing I that I'd like to do
Is save every day
'Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
But we cannot can we. We can only save the memories of those days. And if the spirits are with us we will remember most the good days, and shove the bad to the very back of our minds to appear only when called forth. And we do not know the special times which we must save until they are gone. They are not saved on a scan disc in our minds to be sorted at a time more convenient to review.
We do not know if we will have that time. Or if we have any time to spend or save.
Dad, a man of words and action, was held voiceless in a bubble bed in a hospital. He could not talk, or eat or drink. All those things he so loved. In those seven weeks we were trapped in the waiting room except for brief single wordless visits. Those seven weeks is not the time I would have liked to save. They are not the ones I wish to remember. They are the ones I cannot forget.
I know the pain of those people caught outside in the parking lot unable to sit by their dying loved one's bedside or even be in a waiting room sharing their pain with others in the same prison. Covid is not an easy way to die; for the dying or their loved ones who are caught in suspension saving memories they do not want in a bottle they would like to throw in the ocean. Hoping it will be crushed against the rocks and release them.
'Living' on a ventilator is the worst thing ever for the 'victim' and the family. To see a vital person land in this state is devastating. When it became apparent that Richard was going to die the hospital staff came to me explaining that their job as to resuscitate. I made it very clear that that was a 'no no'. They did not make me sign the obligatory form, nor did they question me. I was thankful for that.
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