#SOL16: Tea

Rob in the driver seat

I.

This morning I go to make myself a cup of tea --Irish tea--and that sick feeling swamps me and I leave the tea undone.  How many times during the last six months have I made two cups of tea instead of just one for me?

One cup for Rob, the other for me.

Tea has been a source of comfort for as long as I can remember. And now as I sit here I realize that it is not the tea so much that comforts,  but rather the stories and talk that seem to accompany the tea.

Now, I will never make him tea again.
Never again.  For 28 years, we have shared tea and now that is over.

II.

The nurse from Hospice arrives and tells me that Rob's blood pressure is 70/40 and is heart rate is accelerated.

Is that why it is so hard to rouse him?
Yes.

My beautiful husband is beyond my reach but not my voice.  All morning I have been talking with him, to him. Since 3 a.m. he has been curled in the bed towards me with the covers wrapped around him. He does not move. And perhaps I want Rob's dying to be more Hollywood-like, less real, less prolonged.  His breath for these last hours have been five quick raspy breaths, followed by silence and then repeated. Every now and then there is a soft or at times a rather loud moan and then silence.

Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
No breathing.

And now the breath is less raspy, softer.

III.

Perhaps I am numb. I can't recall when I slept more than 3 straight hours. I can't leave him. The thought of this planet moving along without my sweet, sweet husband undoes me. Against everything rationale, I still held hope close that I could save him somehow--that a miracle could happen.

My beautiful husband is dying.