What Has Happened

I have been silent for weeks because family events overtook everything else. Aunt Ginger's hip gave way the Monday after Thanksgiving and she went into a hospital with the hope that surgery to pin the bones back together would result in her learning to walk with a walker and return back to the memory unit in which she has lived since the spring.

It didn't happen that way. The surgery took place and went well, according to the orthopedic surgeon. But she never was able to start the physical therapy following the surgery: too much pain, too much disorientation from the dementia. From there, it unwound day by day. She was always in pain, either mental or physical. She did not know where she was or who was with her, including me. And she was clearly sinking.

During the second holiday concert last Sunday, I took a call from a hospice doctor: Ginger had taken a turn for the worse and was dying. Maybe hours, maybe days, but she was dying. By the time we broke the stage and got to the hospital, she was gone. It had just happened: Warren and I were the ones who notified the nurses. After the nurses confirmed what was obvious, they left us alone. We sat with Ginger in the silence of the room, Warren standing close while I held her hand, still warm but cooling, and thought of how much this woman meant to me my whole life. It was a silent, peaceful goodbye.

The week has been spent dealing with Ginger's death: clearing out her room at the memory unit, finalizing the funeral details, meeting with her pastors to discuss the service, hosting a reception last night for family and friends, and then the graveside services today.

It has been an exhausting week. It has been a long week. It has been a week filled with love and sorrow and friends reaching out and family standing close.

I will be back on these pages soon enough. The clutter of the week will be cleared, Ginger's clothing will go to our local free store, things will be put back to rights, and life will go on. It always does. But for me, for now, there is a gap, a tear in the fabric of life, a missing face at the table.