On January 17, 2023, Kathi walked into my office and said, “My mother died.” Theresa had been an Alzheimer’s patient in a Connecticut long-term care home; she had recently developed COVID. We had expected this moment, indeed, prepared for it. We thought.
Hugs first, then calls to our children. Kathi’s family is spread from Southern California to Eastern Ontario. Texts radiated through the family net; arrangements emerged for a Wake on the evening of January 24 and a Mass of Christian Burial on the 25th. We found someone to care for our dog; Kathi drafted her eulogy. We packed the car on the 23rd and left early the following day, driving 650 km from Ottawa to Middletown, CT.
We celebrated the life of an impressive, complicated woman. Kathi’s eulogy captured Theresa’s steely resilience and devotion. My (long-deceased) parents were children of the Depression and the Second War, worlds of scarcity and danger; Terri was a bit younger but exposed to even greater precarity. I am close to Kath’s six siblings and their spouses, nieces and nephews, partners, and grandnieces and nephews. Important things were said. I masked whenever possible.
On the 26th, we drove home through — what else? — an Upper New York State blizzard. Kathi started showing symptoms of COVID on the 27th. I tested positive on the 29th. I have no memory from the 30th and recall mostly chills from the 31st. My fever broke yesterday morning.
On January 17, my life had plans, direction and a rhythm. Then my mother-in-law died in another country, and I got COVID on top of cancer. Eighteen days later, those life plans were in fragments.
I’m not the victim of a Russian missile: the pieces of my life are all present and intact. I just need to grope through the fog to identify and reassemble them.
If somehow I can’t, what of it? We aren’t held together by plans. The integument surrounding me is woven from Kathi, our kin, and our friends. My hope is likewise to be armour for them. John Berryman, writing in the voice of the first American poet, Anne Bradstreet:
We are on each other’s hands who care.
Both of our lives unhanded us.
Kiss with Honda has been our life. Here’s a vignette from 2021.
One dark evening, after a CT scan, I walked through a hospital parking lot. Ahead of me was a pickup truck. A man in the passenger seat was vomiting into a bag held by a woman, presumably his wife. His complexion was freshly poured concrete; he vomited repeatedly. Whatever journey they’d taken, they’d arrived at chemotherapy. His wife closed the bag and gave him a fresh one; this wasn’t their first time. She could never have been so beautiful at her wedding as she was that night, collecting bags of vomit, delivering on the marital promise that matters
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My condolences to you and Kathi, and best wishes for a complete recovery.
I mean...my God, Bill! Too much!
So sorry to hear this, Bill. Best wishes for a full recovery for you and Kathi!