The Peach Street Bubble
What I learned the week my Opa died.
My Opa lived on Peach Street. This is the last place he lived. The last of many houses I loved. The last of the houses that speckled my childhood with memories. I remember the thhouse where I first tasted Sunmaid raisin toast with real butter. I remember the house where he taught me how to ride a bike. I remember the house where he taught me how to snow skii, and where he taught me how to drive. I remember the house he let us live in when we were a young struggling family. This is where he taught me how to make a budget and balance my checkbook.
When I am at the end of my life, and I look back on pivotal points in my story, I think the week Opa died will be one of them. What is sad is that it is impossible to explain. And I’ve tried and will continue to try to explain it to those who were not there; but I don’t think any combination of vocabulary will illustrate why that week was special. And perhaps it isn't important that anyone else understand, but this will be a failed attempt at briefly telling the story anyway.
One Monday in October, Opa had a stroke, and I happened to be working at the hospital when he came in by ambulance. That was the day everything changed. Before that day it was his story that made him powerful. His success through a terrible onset made us all look lazy, uninspiring, and apathetic. He took his nothing beginning, and made it something. He was the picture of dedication, hard work, and success. This man, who knew everything, who was strong, and driven, and able, became an invalid. He was always in control and that day, for the first time, he was helpless.
After much deliberation and agony, Opa’s wife Linda, my Aunt Cyndi, Diana and I, agreed to discontinue treatment based on his wishes:
“The statement I have signed below is to apply if I am suffering from a terminal condition from which death is expected in a matter of months, or if I am suffering from an irreversible condition that renders me unable to to make decisions for myself, and life-support treatments are needed to keep me alive. I request that all treatments other than those needed to keep me comfortable be discontinued or withheld and my physicians allow me to die as gently as possible.”
I read it over and over. I tried to imagine him writing it. I tried to imagine how angry he would be if we didn’t do what was indicated. There was really only one option and it was unthinkable to me. It went against every instinct for healthcare that I have. It went against everything that my padded and spoiled life have allowed me to experience. But we did it.
That night my brother Daniel showed up to the hospital with an overnight bag, and blankets and ask to move in next to Opa. Thank goodness the census was low. Thank goodness the nurses were kind to this crying and desperate kid. So Daniel moved into room 256 bed A. No one that wasn’t there can understand how beautiful it was to watch my brother care for his dying Opa. I have never seen reverence and dedication like this before. With little regard for himself he washed, kissed, and caressed him. He talk to him; he read to him; he was with him constantly. I watched my brother have a strength I didn’t know he had, and I certainly knew I didn’t have. I watched my Mom at his bedside trying to communicate with him. I watched her pain as she processed becoming an orphan. I watched her love and accept all the meager attempts that we made at comforting her. I watched my sisters, who have been estranged from her, come in love, respect and an attitude of peace. I watched my Dad and my stepmom bring food and support several times a day. I watched my ex-husband who has not talked to my family in over 5 years, pay his last respects to this man who loved him and supported him. I watched him reach out to my family in a way I never thought was possible after our divorce. I watched my Aunt Cyndi first hand be the example of nursing that I have always looked up to. I watched my brother Mike coordinate all the logistics, details, and paperwork that needed to be organized prior to his death. I watched Linda, a woman I barely knew at the time, become my Grandma. She loved and cared for my Opa at his very worst. She didn’t see the best of him that we all did. She saw a frustrated, nearly blind old man and she chose to marry him, and love him anyway. She loved him at his lowest, and continued to love him as he died. She earned this family with all of it’s dysfunction and problems. She became my Grandma that week.
I felt the youth and life within my children's little hands and bodies become potent. To hold their vibrant hands in the same moment that I held his dying hand was powerful. Their presence within this story struck me as the only future Opa had; the only future I have. They are our tomorrow.
I felt the youth and life within my children's little hands and bodies become potent. To hold their vibrant hands in the same moment that I held his dying hand was powerful. Their presence within this story struck me as the only future Opa had; the only future I have. They are our tomorrow.
We took him home on Hospice on Wednesday. I felt like it was a story that I was watching happen. Mike had to help the medics carry him in a sling because the gurney didn’t fit through the door. Opa’s grandson, who he had mentored and inspired, was now bringing his lifeless body through the Peach Street doorway, to die. It was too tragic and too beautiful to be real.
What an alteration in my reality. No matter who we are in life, we are all at the mercy of our own death; we are at the mercy of human kindness, and we are at the mercy of those we love.
There were many different beliefs and some non-beliefs that accumulated together that week. It didn’t matter. I think what affected me the most was watching all these flawed people with their own pain and stories come together. There were a lot of mistakes made that week. There were toes stepped on and feelings hurt. And we all communicated from the beginning that everyone got a “free pass.” We decided that we were in a bubble in which, “No one can do anything wrong”. And no matter what wrong anyone did, nothing was wrong.
The Peach Street Bubble meant that we were all choosing to not be offended. We were all choosing grace instead of entitlement. We were so tired, and emotionally drained and yet we still did it. Everyone did, and it was beautiful.
As day after day, and night after night went by, and he got worse and worse, I was more and more fearful. I wasn’t fearful of him being dead, I was fearful of the process of death. I was fearful of him suffering. I was fearful of him being afraid. I was fearful I would kill him when I turned him. I was fearful he would choke on the morphine. I was fearful of every breath that was farther apart from the last.
He lived 5 days after the stroke and died Saturday morning at 7:50 am. And after all my fear, I can say that it was a beautiful death. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so beautiful. I’ve never felt such a bond like the one I felt with the five people next to me those five days, and especially those last moments in which he took his last breath.
The Peach Street Bubble taught me there is more to people than I knew was there; sometimes the most beautiful parts of people come out in the hardest times. It taught me that anything can change at anytime and to value all my moments. It taught me that I have been surrounded by the best people and I’m honored to love and be loved in-spite of my brokenness. I will look at strangers differently; I will look at my patients differently. Most of all I will see my people differently; both the people that I have chosen and those I have by blood. I’m honored to be surrounded by so many amazing souls.
Rest in peace Opa...
