February 28, 2008 – Sunny, bitter cold. Things have changed for Helen and for Warren. She didn’t get to keep her house exactly the way it was. She agreed to a hospital bed, and much furniture was moved. There is a lot of medical equipment and other supplies around. Warren has ordered a medical reclining chair for his bad knees.
 Helen and Warren got their big wish = she gets to remain in her home, and end her life in the way she wishes, with Warren by her side, day and night.
  Warren seems tired to me. He doesn’t get much rest, Helen says.
  A steady stream of Hospice workers – nurses, social workers, volunteers, caretakers pours through the house. There is still much for  him to do – cooking, shopping, caring for Helen.
  Warren says his life in the house with Helen wouldn’t be possible without Hospice and he is “profoundly grateful. We are getting to do this the way we want to do it, as independently and with as much comfort as possible. We just couldn’t do that without hospice.”
   Izzy is very much at home here. He has bonded with both of them. They are always happy to see him, and he brightens the house. He has a way of slipping into the rythyms of the people he visits, and he loves to stare out the window with Helen at her beloved garden.
  Helen lights up when she sees him. “He seems like an old friend,” she told me. She said our visits are fun. That is true. Helen says I am walking stiffly, and she asks if my back hurts. She asks if I’ve fallen.
   I lift Izzy on and off the bed, as Helen’s skin is very sensitive. He is extremely careful around her, and has never scratched or bruised her. He is no longer nervous about the oxygen pump.
After 15 minutes or so, Izzy comes off of the bed, visits with Warren.  I joke with Helen that she is not the Queen of England, therefore she has to put up with all of these changes. She vows to come back and torment me when I am old and sick, even if she has to haunt me. Helen and Warren’s humor and grace never leaves them. Helen tells me she once asked her grandfather why he sat out back all the time, and he told her, “I am listening to my corn grow.” She says she wants to sit out in the back field this Spring and smell the lilacs and listen for corn.
  Yesterday we discovered William Butler Yeats together. Helen loves books and always has one around, but she often doesn’t have the energy to read, so I read stories and poems to her. We found one yesterday that nearly brought tears to her eyes, and to mine. She says it is now her favorite poem. It is called “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and it is by Yeats.

   Here are the last two verses:

   “I dropped the berry in a stream
    And caught a little silver trout
    When I had laid it on the floor
    And some on called me by my name:
    It had become a glimmering girl
    With apple blossoms in her hair,
    Who called me by my name and ran,
    And faded through the brightening air

  
     “Though I am old and wandering
      Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
      I will find out where she has gone
      And kiss her lips and take her hands
      And walk among long dappled grass
      And pluck till time and times are done
      The silver apples of the moon,
      The golden apples of the sun.”

    I told Helen I would read this poem every time I came to see her. I promised I would
save it.