Isn’t it funny how sometimes we have our days planned and we think we know just exactly what to expect. And then, in a moment, that same day takes a 180 degree turn and you end up somewhere you never guessed you would be that day?
I had a day like that today.
My family and I were driving to an All Saints Day party about 25 minutes away. When we were about 10 minutes from our house, I got a call on my cell phone from my Mom. In the next moment, I was breathing quickly, crying, and telling Eric, “Don’t turn! Drive straight!”
Instead of us all heading to the party, I needed him to take me to my Grandma’s apartment, in order to meet my Mom there. She had told me that she was driving there because my Dad had gone to visit Grandma (his mother) and he thought that she had passed away — right while he was there. One minute he was talking to her, then he was changing her clocks and she started to cough a bit. Then, just a minute or so later, he asked her a question and she didn’t answer. He couldn’t get her to respond, and called 911.
I got there to paramedics, police, and my Dad. In what I didn’t know would happen, the paramedics wouldn’t tell us anything. But, when they finally wheeled past us to take her to the ambulance, both my Dad and I caught a glimpse of a small monitor that was held on the gurney — it showed a straight line and a zero. We were told that we needed to meet them at the hospital. We couldn’t help but watch as they rushed her out, working on CPR the whole time.
The drive to the hospital was surreal. We talked in terms of “if.” “If she has passed away, we need to (call whomever, do whatever)…” I kept thinking that we would show up at the hospital and she would be fine. Not fine, of course, but with us. I don’t know why. I just thought that if I talked like she had passed, then we would look back and think how silly we had all been to over react.
We (my Mom, Dad, and I) made it to the emergency room and they seemed to indicate that she wasn’t there yet. And, then it seemed like just moments later, the employee at the front desk told us that they were there with her, but that we needed to wait in the waiting room. But, just a couple of minutes after that, he told us that they wanted us to wait in a small, quiet room inside the ER to wait for the doctor.
At each step of this, I thought, “She’s gone.” But, in each step, I also thought, “They’re going to tell us that she’s still alive.”
Finally, a doctor and a nurse came into our small room. Their faces and voices were soft but somber. The doctor asked what had happened that morning. My parents recounted having talked to her on the phone, and how she had been chatty with my Mom about a movie they had both watched. They then talked about when my Dad was with her.
Then, the doctor had her turn to talk. She told us briefly about what the paramedics had done for her. And, while this story sure sounds like the ending is pretty easy to figure out, I thought she was going to say, “We got her back, but she’s not doing well.” I don’t know why — I just thought that was exactly, word per word, what she was going to say.
But, of course, it wasn’t. It was that the paramedics had never been able to get her back. They had done everything right, but she was gone. And, we would probably not know exactly why it had happened, but based on what Dad had said (and some previous heart attacks), it was probably a massive heart attack that had taken her in just a moment. She probably didn’t even have a chance to be in pain.
They were both the words I expected to hear, and not at all what I expected to hear. And, even though we were able to see her and say goodbye, I have to admit that this still seems like a weird mix of reality and a hazy dream that you wake up from and say, “Was that real? It seemed real, but that was too weird to be real, so it must be a dream.”
I keep telling myself that it shouldn’t be so hard to believe, as she was 90 years old, but it still isn’t quite within my grasp. So this week, I will not only be helping to clean out her apartment and assisting with anything that my parents need, but I’ll also be working on really believing that what happened today really did happen.
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