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Thief

 April 28, 2008 – All right, all right. I promised to be open on this blog, and I will fess up here that last week Lenore, the Hound of Love,  is suspected of having stolen a cheeseburger from a Hospice patient lying in a hospital bed.
  We were on a Hospice visit, and a family member came back from McDonald’s with two cheeseburgers, one for the nurse, and one for the patient, who loved cheeseburgers.  I didn’t notice that the nurse opened the bag and put the two cheeseburgers down on the floor next to her purse.
  A minute later, I heard the words any Lab owner knows all too well, “Hey, what happened to the cheesburger I put on the floor!”
  Lenore was sitting next to me, wagging her tail, licking her chops only slightly, and looking like an angel. It was all so fast she had to have virtually inhaled the burger, which is not in the least bit surprising. The mystery is that there was no wrapper anywhere, and I suppose that really shouldn’t have surprised me either.
  She then cuddled with the patient, who simply adored her and laughed about the cheeseburger. “You can always get another burger,” she said, “but you rarely see a dog like Lenore!” (Sgt. Mann, I am not telling you which patient, so don’t even ask.)
  “Lenore,” I said when we got out to the car, “you ought to be ashamed of herself. You cannot be a Hospice dog and be stealing food from Hospice patients.” Lenore tilted her head and looked at me curiously, and then wagged her tail and came over to lick my hand. She seemed pleased.

What Helen sees

April 28, 2008 – So yes, as you can see and sense, things are different, we are in a new and intimate place, on the edge of life, where the world shrinks almost beyond imagination and time has a different meaning. Which is why, Helen used to point out, memories are so important.
  This is Helen’s view, and is her view all day every day and has been for a long time. The pot is filled with fresh flowers, so her view is filled with flowers and beyond is her beloved hill and her barn. The garden is not in sight. This is her world now, this and Warren, and her daughter.
  This is the awful beauty of Hospice, the point. As is also apparent, things have changed. I am a volunteer, but more than that.
  In some strange and indefinable way, Warren and Helen and I and the dogs have drawn close, and we are in this together, as far as I can go. We are in a place beyond training, out of the manual.
  Warren and Helen are committed to this process, to doing it well, uncomplainingly, lovingly, and openly, one of their last gifts to the world.
   I stay close now, calling, coming every day. It is a time of whispers and quiet, and sudden and noisy comings and goings, and waiting and the confusion and muddle – the new normal – of the process of leaving the world.

                                           ___

  Warren does not stop and eat, sitting by Helen’s side day and night, so I have taken to bringing him food every now and then. He eats at 3 or 4 a.m., if he eats, so I try and bring him his favorite food, steak and french fries, and some dessert. I always say, “Warren, how about if I bring some dinner by tonight?,” and he always says, “no, Jon, don’t bother. I have food in the refrigerator I have to use up,” and then I say, “Warren, I will bring the food by in an hour or so,” and then he says “That would be wonderful,” and we have this same exact conversation almost every single night, word for word. And although he can never ask for this food, or agree to it, I can see how much this meal means to him in the middle of the night, when it is finally quiet.
   Beyond the manual. We have business.
   Before, he shared this food with Helen. Now, she can’t eat it. I bring it by around 7 or 8 p.m. “We have to do business,” Warren says every night, his way of wanting to pay for the food. I don’t know why, but I cannot take Warren’s money now, and so the pile of money grows, and I take a bill every now and then off the top, but the pile grows, and Warren, distracted, has not yet noticed that the pile is getting bigger. I think perhaps I will take this money and give it to Friends of Hospice.
  Tonight, he turns to me, and says, “sometimes I just feel so muddled, as if I can’t keep
everything straight.” This is natural, I tell him. He has a lot to keep straight. I feel this way every day.

                                            ____

   Warren and I have been sitting and talking for an hour. Every few minutes, he says, “How are you, sweetheart?” but Helen doesn’t answer. This is such a powerful contrast to the almost continuous conversation that marked this couple’s time.
  She is breathing heavily, restless. As I leave, I get up and go over to her bedside, as I do every night, and touch her arm and say goodbye. This night, her eyes open suddenly, and her eyes brighten, and she smiles. “Hey,” she says so softly, it is not quite a whisper. “Are you going to make me work?”, which is what she always said when I badgered her about her poems. “I am,” I said, “I am here to annoy you.”
  She smiles, and her eyes close. “I’m just a sick old lady,” as she always said to me.
  And she is asleep and I say goodnight, and say I will see her tomorrow.
  As I say every night as I pack up my camera and call the dogs, and think of his painful knees and say “Warren, don’t get up. Call me if there’s trouble,” and as he says every night, when he gets up to shake my hand and thank me for coming, “Jon, if I don’t get up once in awhile, I may never get up.” And I leave.

    
    Warren jokes that he would love for Izzy to move in for awhile, and I suspect
he isn’t really joking.

April 28, 2008 – The cover of “Izzy and Lenore, Two Dogs, an Unexpected Journey, and Me,” went up on Amazon today, I am told. This is the first book where I have the cover photo as well as photos inside and the content. I’m excited about that. Check it out if you have time. The book is about Izzy and our Hospice, the impact of Lenore on my life last year, and as a minor subplot, my descent into the shadows and emergence.
  Many of you have been following me on this passage (I have sworn never to use the word “journey” in my writing, as it is being beaten to death everywhere) and have been supporting, encouraging and following me on this blog as I ranted, mused and struggled.
  All I can say is I love you for it, and thank you. It is always quite wonderful to be reminded of how many wonderful people are running around out there, rooting for a total stranger. And his dogs, of course.
  The Hound of Love deserves a cover. She is the light.