Fading Days

The figure lying against the white sheets seems a pale sketch of itself. I stand a few feet away, scanning for somewhere to place the bag that I already regretted bringing.  A roll table pulled over to the bed provides a place for the main event.  The gentle frenzy settles down to a whispered fluttering as the reading of the documents begins.

When the witness arrives, I pull a metal chair over for her heavy frame.  The patient’s caregiver steadies that chair and then rests the witness’s walking stick against the wall, next to mine.  I lean over and murmur a few words of explanation.  In the bed, a trembling hand lifts to hold a page.   Comes the pivotal question:  Are these three people the ones you want to manage your finances if you become incapacitated or die?  The eyes flutter.  A voice more sure than I expected laments, I wish I only had one child.  He does not mean that, of course; one could see the love he had for all five of them in the steady way he intoned their names when asked, in that ritual testing of competence that we legal types visit upon the elderly and the infirm.

In my supporting role as notary, I prop a journal on the maple side table for the two credible witnesses to sign.  Then I step to the side of the patient on whose behest we have all assembled.  His eyes seemed sleepy from the distant corner in which I had been hovering, but they turn to study me as I hold out a pen.  Now you just need to sign my book, I say, in the quiet, firm voice that I tend to use when I want to sound respectful but understanding.  I don’t write very well anymore, he responds.  My heart skips a beat.   It doesn’t have to be pretty, I reply.  It just has to be here.  A ghost of a smile assures me that the mind still functions.  He comprehends my lame attempt at levity.

I hold the book with one hand and use the other to mark the signature line.  He raises the pen and presses it against the page.  I watch the names form.  There is no mistaking the truth of his lament.  His writing has deteriorated; I’ve seen executed documents from a decade ago and know that once he signed with confidence.  But one can discern the letters.  He lowers the writing instrument and closes his eyes.  He has done what he wanted to do.  He can sleep.

I’ve seen enough people near the end of their lives to know that this soul will soon end its earthly existence.  Perhaps not tomorrow; maybe not next week; but soon.  I gather the tools of my evolved trade and move away, letting his grown children and long-time companion take my place.  I step outside, carefully, cautiously, because I have fallen at the home of a stranger and loathe the ensuing flurry of anxious activity.  I have no desire to mar the fading days of the beloved being whose body has been besieged by cancer.  

In the car, I huddle against the passenger door and think about my mother.  Cancer took her too, more than half my lifetime ago.  I close my eyes and feel the rhythm of the wheels and the road.  I wonder who will gather around my bedside when my time comes.  My son, my friends, a kindly aide?  I feel a tear rise beneath my lashes and make some idle irrelevant comment to distract myself, as the sun begins its slow and steady descent to the western horizon.

It’s the twenty-ninth day of the ninety-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

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