Ramblings …
The Very Last Meal
By Richard Skaare
An array of afflictions, some persistent for years, had piled up and given my mother no hope for relief or survival. She resigned herself to hospice care to await the final closing. Then the closing got temporarily postponed.
To comfort her with familiarity, my brother and I brought her home with a hospital bed and a visiting nurse and set her beside the large window she loved in the living room. From there she could see greenery, and the damned squirrels, and neighbors, and people arriving at the home that our uncle and dad—by then deceased—had built some 60 years back.
And folks did arrive regularly. We sent out word about her condition to those whose lives were interwoven with our mother’s. Those who came to say goodbye hadn’t seen each other for some time but they had kept in touch with my mother, mostly by phone. The phone was Natalie’s lifeline; she was an early adopter of cell phone technology.
I worried that some might not get to see her before the door closed on my mother. But on a Sunday, a batch of friends and relatives arrived, kissed their dear longtime friend lying in her bed, chatted a while, though my mother could say only a few words and then softly, sat with others near her, and picked up the conversation with the group where they had left the last time they had seen each other. Natalie wanted to get closer to the circle of love, and we helped her out of the bed and onto a chair.
Memories dominated, especially about crazy relatives now departed. I could see my mother’s smile broaden. She remembered and was not sad. She was filled with gladness listening to the embellished stories and banter of those she loved. Occasionally and faintly she contributed a few words.
Later, after everyone had left, my brother and I shared the same impression: the gathering was actually our mother’s viewing—a wake of sorts without the funeral home. She had said that she didn’t think she wanted a viewing, especially if the one or two nasty people she didn’t want there showed up. Most importantly, being awake in her own living room allowed her to attend her own viewing as a spectator and participant. My brother and I decided to scrap the ceremonial multi-day viewing. All that was needed was a brief service at the funeral home prior to the drive to the cemetery and letting her go.
Still in her chair and alone with Jane and me, my mother couldn’t stop beaming. But then she said something extraordinary — extraordinary for a weak, bedridden patient, but not so for the ever-determined Natalie. “I’d like to go out for Sunday dinner,” and named her favorite restaurant.
I assumed that was impossible — or maybe not so. I called the hospice nurse, who said Natalie could go if she could get to the car with a walker and our assistance. Strong-willed Natalie did.
Amazingly, at the restaurant, she ate a full meal of steak, potatoes, and salad after subsisting on fluids and light snacks for a week or more. After leaving, we stopped at her favorite supermarket so I could quickly grab some groceries. She wanted to go in, too.
The only way to do that was to get her into a motorized shopping cart. She would be fine with that, she said, though she had never driven one. I went into the store to fetch the cart and asked a manager about operating it. No problem, he said, he’d take it out to the car and show her. He was understanding, kind, and affirming as he eased the elderly Natalie into the cart
Inside the store, she buzzed around the aisles as if she was experienced. Folks would joke with her about being a reckless driver, and they would all laugh. She added groceries to the cart and forty-five minutes later we were in the car heading home.
At home, we got her back into her hospice bed, and as she moved toward sleep, she said, “this was the best day of my life.” And that was the best day of my life.
Forty-eight hours later she left.