Saturday, December 8, 2012

Honoring Bill

I came to my blog this rainy, dark evening in the North, to tell my tale since I last wrote.  My companion, Bill, died on August 26, due to advanced liver illness.  It seems it always comes sooner than we think it will.  Last summer he spoke of another friend who probably wouldn't last until Christmas.  The friend is terminally ill and still with us.  I have the thought, but Bill you aren't with us.
With the support of many I have muddled through since he died..  People have been there and done things for me that I never would have guessed were something I needed.  They saw the need and filled it.  

Hospice and the staff were wonderful the last 2 and a half days he was able to be home before passing.  He made a massive effort to get home from the hospital before he died.  A Hospice nurse and Linda G. inched him slowly in the door of our house and he had to repeatedly sit down before getting to the hospital bed set up in our living room.   The day before when I'd visited him at the hospital he had walked up and down the hallway using his walker.  He has been talking and calling people on the phone and seeing visitors.  I was unbearably shocked when I came the next day to take him home.  He was so weak, barely walking to his hospital room door with the walker.

I have written else where about our last night together.  He was moving on and heavily medicated with the elixir given to the dying to ease the passage from life to death.  Linda G. who had some experience with the dying explained the process that they go through.  The Hospice nurse had told me she doubted he would last the weekend.  Karl came to see him.  He wanted to see his friend one last time.

I sang to Bill, held his hand, prayed the Lord's Prayer and Serenity Prayer.  I think his last conscious words to me were "I love you."  It's so hard to let go of  Bill, even now.

He died at 3 an that morning.  I was on the phone to a close friend and looked over and he died then.  She told me, "I think he didn't want you to be alone when he died."

I have a small Christmas shrine at my desk in honor of him.  There is a smiling picture of him looking out from  the table where he sat doing a jig saw puzzle.  I have a small cross stitching that I did that states, "Bless this house with love and laughter."  There is my small, wooden painted prayer box, and a small tree decorated with beads and at the back a candle in a glass with the Serenity Prayer on it.

I honor Bill this way.




3 comments:

  1. Just want you to know...You are not alone. I'm here...having you and Bill in my thought and prayers.

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  2. Visit you again. Wish you well and may your days be fill with wonderful things! Love - PC

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  3. How are you doing? I'm so sorry for your loss. Life can seem so short at times. My husband is at stage 5 kidney failure... he is 35 years old. He is on dialysis and continuing to work as much as possible.

    My thoughts and prayers are with you.

    Hugs

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