A Cancer Journey: Lou Goes Home
This is the final installation of our Head of Accounting’s story as she watched her husband’s life come to an end almost a year ago today. To read all of her story, click here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Part 4: Lou Goes Home
“Happy Birthday, Babe! The day this blog posts will be your first birthday in heaven, and my first without you. I think I will go to Dana Point with Bella and April if she is free. Then have the family over for pizza. You know we lost Molly the first Sunday in March, so it’s just Bella and me now.”
Part of my healing journey is journaling fairly regularly to Lou. I also let him journal back to me through my fingers on the computer keyboard.
But . . . I am a year ahead of myself . . .
Let me tell you something of those last weeks we had Lou. They kept increasing his medications and he hallucinated quite a bit. Some of the medications were totally wrong for him and caused terrible side effects. Also, Lou fell several times. The nurse took everything away and said it was time for him to remain in bed.
It was 4/15. I was trying to finish our taxes on the computer before midnight. Lou fell, trying to get to the room where I was working. If he could not see me it became a huge source of anxiety for him. I strapped him in the wheelchair, so he could be with me. When he was too exhausted to sit, I helped him back into bed. I tried to get him soothed enough for me to finish. We were both so stressed. None of his medications worked that night. He could not sleep. The nurse on night call told me to increase the one he was having the psychotic reaction to and someone would come soon. Lou got much worse. I panicked and became hysterical. That immediately caused Lou to find the strength to become normal & sane and overcome the effects of the medication.
During that time of him calming me down and holding me beside him in his narrow bed, Lou spoke to me and gave me what I have come to think of as his final benediction over me: Wonderful words from God through him, that will carry me the rest of my life. We finally fell asleep in each others’ arms.
About 5 am a nurse came and told me they were changing the medication and making him “comfortable”. They put him into a “medical coma” which he never really came out of, except once. He had had no water to drink for 8 days by then, because they said he would choke if given any. When he decided to talk, he fought and fought to find and loosen his tongue. “I am dying!” he cried out. That was all he was able to say.
Photo Courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/mingman
On Lou’s last night, my girlfriend took the night watch while I got a medicated sleep. I woke with a start that morning to the song rolling in my head by the Kinks: “So Tired of Waiting for You.” Was it Lou trying to get my attention? I flew out of bed and to his side. His hand was warm but most of him was cold. I spoke to him and told him over again and again how I loved him and to go with God.
That was it. He was gone. It was 0830 on April 25, 2013.
I had no training as a celebrant, but I knew it was important that Lou’s service do him justice and share his story. I figured I needed to be the one to do it. His unfailing love and care for me had been unparalleled. Outside of me, no one was more important than his loving, faithful daughter April and his grandkids. I simply couldn’t just do facts and statistics. Lou was not that kind of a guy. He deserved more.
I ended up giving a eulogy that helped people see the man, the one who existed behind closed doors, the one our family loved and respected so much. Then, it was important to show him visually from a child on up in a video tribute with meaningful songs in the background. Our pastors spoke, our loved ones sang: “It is Well with my Soul” (and it was: He went straight to the arms of Jesus), and “Mansion over the Hilltop” (his favorite, and where I know he is living today.)
Photo Courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/eAlisa
We ended with everyone singing together: “Blessed be your Name” The words described perfectly how Lou and I chose to view this horrible, shockingly short ordeal of pain we lived through together. The Lord gives and takes away. It would have never been our choice for this to happen to us. Still, our hearts chose to say “Blessed be the Name of the Lord”. As I am writing this, I am thinking of Easter. Because of the resurrection, I know Lou also lives.
Four short months of suffering together, has been followed by the hardest year of my life. But make no mistake: It is my pain, for MY Loss, not Lou’s.
Still, I am getting by. I have my family, my faith, people who care about me and my occasional Lou sightings.
So, Happy Birthday, Babe. And thank you… You were amazing! I truly had the best!
|| what do you think?
How have you commemorated anniversaries like these?
What practices have you found helpful in your grief journey?
57 Comments
Strong, courageous, caring, deeply spiritual, insightful, smart, intuitive, loving…these are all words I use to describe you, Anne!
For you to share your grief journey with us as you are living it has been an amazing and impactful journey for all of us who have been following your series of blogs. Your faith has never seemed to waiver through the unimaginable pain you have endured. Yet even through your pain, (when it would be so easy and understandable for you to lose yourself off), you have chosen to share with us and help us see that death is not the divider, but that those we miss so dearly continue to be with us. Thank you, Anne, so very much for your gift to us.
Love,
Becky
HI Becky,
Very kind words. We just all do our best. It helps if we feel purpose for our lives. There must also be purpose in Lou’s death, greater than just leaving us early from cancer, so I had to tell it.
Love
Anne
Dearest Toni,
What a beautiful thing to say. I guess you have told me this before, but seeing it in print somehow made it more, I don’t know, genuine or something, like you weren’t just being comforting, saying it to make me feel better. Well, now if I don’t get it written by the time he is ready to marry, you can at least click on the link to this blog and print it out for him. If I actually wrote it, I imagine I would recall a lot more.
Wednesday was Lou’s birthday. The family all gathered at my house and we had a party for him. My granddaughter Jessica’s boyfriend hadn’t known Lou. We shared a lot of stories that night around the table which he so enjoyed. Jess asked if I could get out some pictures of Lou when he was younger for Brad to see. We decided to put on the video of the pictures from the funeral. Of course it ended with Annie’s Moon. I was fairly fine through the whole evening until then. I lost it and became a puddle.
I still watch for that moon every month. Usually someone texts me and asks if I have looked in the sky yet. I love that. You can be one that helps me never miss it if you want. Just shoot me a text. I never want to miss a one.
Love
Anne
Anne thank you for sharing yours and Lou’s journey with us. Reading your experiences shows the very special love that you two share. We will always remember the day that changed our lives and to celebrate them is the best way to honor those events.
Lauren,
I hope you are doing the same with your mom’s memory… marking the times and honoring her. I know you do whenever you wear one of her pieces of clothing or jewelry. I am sure that makes her smile.
Love,
Anne
I don’t know if its being newly married, or just because I know and care for you so and feel so much for you, but this last installment brought tears to my eyes. I know this has been a rough year and I love how you stated that you grieve your loss and your pain, its selfless to see it that way and that is your nature, kind hearted and giving. As lucky as you were to have Lou, he was very lucky to have you as well. I am sure he will welcome you into his mansion in the sky with open doors someday and that will be a beautiful thought to have in that moment. My Grandfather grieved for over 17 years for my Grandma Rita, when he died I just thought “finally they are walking together holding hands again” and that thought helped me get through MY pain. xoxo
Jenn,
I am so glad you are here with us. You are genuine and real. Lou would have liked you a lot, I think. Can’t wait to see Lou’s mansion. There will be room for me and as long as he is in it and we are with the Lord, it sure doesn’t need to be fancy.
It is probably good that Lou went first. Men who love deeply often have it harder if they are left behind. In saying that, I can’t imagine it being harder, but I still think I have more strength to get through this eventually than he would have.
Love
Anne
What a beautiful story, Anne. I am so glad you got to experience your life with Lou and stay with him until the day he died. That must have been such a difficult experience to go through, but I am happy that you have your faith that is probably helping you so much as you have gone through the year and coming years without him. I am sure he is proud of you for being so strong through this. I would love to hear about your occasional Lou sightings
Thank you, Shasta. Tonight I went over to our vegetable garden to see if it was alive or dead, from lack of attention. I picked and ate a few ripe berries that were transplanted in January from the garden I gave up. I looked over at the greens which were going to seed and back in the next bed at a fully ready volunteer lettuce plant that I needed to pick the outer leaves before the rapidly approaching dusk overtook me and they locked the gate. I turned back to the collard greens and ripped out the top of where the plant was going to seed. I pulled and twisted with such strength that when it gave way, I lost my balance and fell backwards into the raised bed behind me. When I finally got myself standing again, I turned around and saw I had fallen on the lettuce plant, completely snapping all the leaves off into a perfect pile on the ground around it, without breaking the center stem, which will keep producing! Just then I saw security drive by to empty out stragglers like me. I scooped up enough lettuce for 3 days of salad in two seconds. Now that is a little “Lou sighting”.