Table For One

How can this be? An adventuresome journey of fifty four years with my husband and best friend has come to its end. In my last post I alluded to the fact that Warren wasn’t well. We’d planned a trip to the Finke Desert Rally which we had to cancel as he was in hospital. Sometimes we just presume we are invincible. It has always been important to Warren to keep fit. He needed to be strong and healthy for his work, and for the multitude of adventures he still had planned. He’d been going for long mountain bike rides, to the gym with our grandson three times a week, we’d been swimming together every weekday morning. Then he’d begun to feel nauseous, lost his appetite, and as days progressed more and more symptoms began to overwhelm him. He was admitted to hospital in Adelaide. One night after being with him there for several hours, I called in to a restaurant on my way home, for a bite to eat. I guess it’s not uncommon for people to dine alone, but it was something I hadn’t done for decades. It was high winter – a cold, drizzly, stranger of a night. The warmth, soft lights, and modern décor of the restaurant held no comfort without my mate beside me.

I couldn’t wait for the specialists to find out what was wrong with him and fix it, so we could return to life as normal. Weeks went by. Every test under the sun was done, all of which came up negative. Each night I would drive the forty five minutes home from the hospital to be welcomed by our two sheep dogs, ecstatic with the hope that this time their master would get out of the driver’s side of the car and tomorrow they’d be back in the hills rounding up sheep. I’d walk up the long dark driveway to our big old house, with them brushing at my side, but with my heart aching for them.

Warren would ring me each morning. ‘Are you coming today?’ ‘Yes of course. I’ll be there soon.’ We would take him things – a warm woolen extra blanket for his bed, a soft u-cushion to support his head, super-broth that would bring a dying man back from the brink, diced paw-paw with amazing healing properties, nuts for protein, Land Rover and camping magazines, fresh sets of clothes, warm, comfy slippers. But gradually, before our eyes, he was deteriorating. This fit, vibrant, brimming with goals and dreams man was losing his ability to walk, to even stand. One of the world’s great talkers, yarn spinners was losing his voice. We had to lean in close to hear his whispered words. I came in wearing a new pair of glasses one day. ‘New glasses,’ he whispered with a smile. ‘Do you like them?’ I asked. ‘Yes, like the ones ….. you wore ….. on our wedding day.’ We were still in love. I thought of Bob Dylan’s song ‘It Aint me Babe’ –

‘You say you’re looking for someone who’s never weak but always strong

To protect you and defend you

Whether you are right or wrong

Someone to open each and every door

But it aint me babe … ‘

(Well it was you Warren).

Tests were ongoing – every one imaginable, but the best neurological minds together could not come up with a diagnosis. For weeks we as a family had our heads in online books and articles. We’d get together late at night after visiting Warren, and discuss theories, every conceivable possibility.

From going to the hospital with a bag full of stuff almost too heavy to carry each day, the bag became lighter. I was taking things home – his radio, his magazines, his special treats, his slippers, clothes, toiletries. He was now mostly asleep but always aware of us in the room and responding with murmurs and small gestures. Still we researched, prayed, hung on the results of the final test – a brain biopsy.

One night I had a vivid dream. Warren was telling me I had to leave him. ‘You have to go away,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to,’ I cried. ‘You have to,’ he insisted with a loving calm. ‘But where will I go?’ I begged.

I woke up under a ponderous sadness and debilitating fear.

Two days after his craniotomy, I received a phone call from the hospital. The doctor asked could the family come in for a meeting. By now Warren was in a non-induced coma, on a drip, and gastric feeding tube. As we drove to the hospital we were filled with dread. With all of us gathered in one of those depressing small meeting rooms full of other people’s losses, we were told the brain biopsy had come up negative. There was nothing they could do to save him. We huddled and sobbed, uttering words and sounds of grief.

‘Nothing we can do to save him’. From what?

My beautiful husband was moved from intensive care to palliative care. He would have anything from a few hours to two days to live. I would be with him now to the end. I held his hand, kissed him, talked to him, and had no doubt he could hear me. The family were there too in their small groups – coming and going, talking, loving him as they always had.

The nurses removed his feeding tube, then his drip. I watched the life force leaving him. When his breathing became erratic I massaged his chest and throat, pleading for him to keep breathing. Then I remembered something my daughter-in-law – a registered nurse – had told me – ‘Sometimes our loved ones need our permission to go.’

I stopped begging him to stay. It was time to let him go. I told him again how much I loved him, that we knew how much he loved us, and that I would be okay. ‘If you want to go now Darling, you can,’ I said. He opened his eyes, just a little, for the first time in days, then closed them and took his last breath.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I’d said, but the animal sounds coming out of me then would have made anyone think otherwise.

But I am okay. I have been ten weeks a widow. It is God-awful without him, and some of the deepest anguish is at the end of each day when I expect him to walk through that door, grab himself a beer, pour me a wine and for us to sit on the verandah with the dogs, looking out over our farm, talking about our day, and our dreams and goals. There’s a deep sorrow in knowing that our wide outback adventures are over, but I will create my own smaller, safer but nevertheless exciting ones – still worthy of written stories and blogs to share.

Till next time,

Sue

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