Two years ago, at Christmas-time, my grandfather—who has always seemed to be a frail, bird-like, fragile little man, and who had become increasingly detached and remote and uncomprehending of late—collapsed and was taken to the ICU. The doctors weren’t holding out much hope for his recovery—they were very clear with us that it was just a matter of time.
Still, for several weeks, he lay in a hospital bed, seemingly unconscious, not opening his eyes or in any way acknowledging that he could see or hear what was going on around him. Scores of tubes and monitors and wires were hooked into him: a respirator to help him breathe, feeding tubes, heart monitor, something to monitor his blood sugar level, who knows what else. His breathing—even with the respirator—was labored and ragged; an unmistakable noise—like that of a rattlesnake’s tail or a child’s toy—escaped from this throat with every breath: the death rattle.
Christmas that year was my grandparents’ 55th anniversary. We spent it sitting in the ICU. For days, my grandmother had simply refused to leave the hospital at all—“I want to be there when he wakes up,” she’d say. Over and over, she would go to his side, pat his hand and stroke the side of his face and say, “Harry? Harry, it’s me,
It became a kind of crooning lullaby that she sang, as if to comfort him, and perhaps herself. She looked at him with the fresh naïve hope of a young child, sitting on Santa’s knee, certain that he is real and that whatever is asked for would be received: if she asked often enough and she believed deeply enough, perhaps soon he would wake up and they would go back to normal.
It took the three of us to convince her to leave his side, even for a moment. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, would just sit there, patting his hand, and stroking back the thin, stringy strands of his still perfectly black hair, telling him how handsome he looked.
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