Another Tuesday

With a quiet woosh the doors opened and out I went into the walkway where dimmed lights bounced off the worn, polished wooodwork. Women lined the narrow hall -- sixteen or seventeen ladies, some in wheelchairs, some with walkers, some helping others to stand or lean against the walls. No one smiled. A few reached out to grasp hands briefly as we walked by.

The fourth tall oak door on the left opened, and there she was: Aunt Anna, also known in the greater world simply as "Sister," smaller than I had ever seen her, a tiny broken doll of a woman, curled into herself on the reclining chair. She was covered in a hand-knitted blanket, oxygen strapped across her face, moaning quietly, a staccato "Oh. Oh. Oh." as she suffered through the cancer that had invaded her bones and now ate her organs one by one.

Cousin Peggy, eyes rimmed red and a beautiful smile in place, leaned over closely. "Aunt Anna, Colleen and James are here." Aunt Anna's eyes opened from mostly-closed to half mast. I hurried closer and grasped her hand, 92-year old skin like soft over-worn leather against mine. She squeezed. "Colleen. Colleen, good, good."

Her words were the softest I had ever heard her speak. All my life she had been forceful, known her mind and never hesitated to speak it. She was a teacher, of the old school: full of kindness but no-nonsense, direct, crisp, to-the-point. Now her words were softned and slurred, as if every syllable was a struggle. She held my hand tighter, suprisingly strong for such a small, wasted body.

"Glad you're here. God bless you both, Collen and James. God bless you. May you live good, long lives. A good life, a long life. God bless you." It was a final benediction, the last in a long line of graces this woman had granted me.

"Thank you, Sister." I took a moment. This was it. What to say? "Aunt Anna, I love you. I love you very much."

She looked at my, turned her head with eyes wide open. "Thank you," she said, voice firm and clear.

I sat for minutes or hours or days, holding her hand in mine. Through the door the hallway ladies watched in silence, in sadness, keeping vigil over their own. Occasionally the moans would start again and I would rub whatever part of her I could touch without inflicting more pain. Sister Fran came over with an eyedropper filled with liquid morphine, tucking it gently into Aunt Anna's cheek so she could swallow, a mama bird giving vital sustenance to its charge. A single drop of the medicine lingered at the corner of her lip, vivid purple-red against her gray pallor. I wiped it away.

"Oh. Oh. Oh." Her moans increased as we waited anxiously for the meds to kick in. An ancient bright-eyed nun in a white shirt and pink cable-knit cardigan shuffled in with her walker, going to Anna's other side. She took Anna's hand and begin to rub it, massaging her arm in comfort. The pink Sister pressed her forehead against Anna's. A necklace of worn crosses dangled off of her neck. "Father, Jesus, Mother Mary, I am devoted to you," she intoned. "Father, Jesus, Mother Mary, protect me from pain." Line after line she prayed, tenderly rubbing Anna's brusied, marked arms with her own wrinkled, gnarled hands. Anna's cracked lips followed along with the prayer over and over again. She never missed a line. She made no sound. The moaning stopped.

Much later, after the nuns trickled away for the night, Aunt Anna finally slipped off to sleep, open-mouthed and barely-closed eyes, head lolling to one side. Her blunt-chopped white hair -- hair that, in my 33 years on earth, I had only ever seen out of her habit not even a handful of times -- was secured back in a child's yellow plastic headband, sticking up crazily in tufts and whisps from her face. Blankets were tucked gently around her shoulders, encasing and mummifing her as she shivered with cold in the 85-degree room. We walked slowly to the elevator, exhausted, wondering if tomorrow we would be back for more of the same or if tomorrow would begin the plans for Aunt Anna's final rest.

The elevator arrived and I stepped in, looked out at it all: the endlessly long hallway studded with tall oak doors, the family hospitality cart with its dixie cups and Saran-wrapped pitchers of cranberry and orange juice, the lone finch in its cage kept company by the little ancient nun in pink, feeding tidbits from a plate of salad scraps on her lap. She looked up and smiled. "Have a safe journey home, now."

The elevator dinged closed.