What was Jon thinking as he laying dying?
It breaks my heart to imagine it.
It wearies me. Yesterday, it took a cup of tea, followed by a cup of decaf, followed by a shower to rally the energy and courage to write this post, which I’d been contemplating all week:
What was my husband thinking, feeling as he lay in that hospital bed, struggling to breathe?
Grief’s Many Parts
Grief has many parts, I’ve learned over the past nine months. There’s the “I miss my husband. The house is too quiet without him” part.
And there’s the “What if?” part. What if I could have been in the emergency room with him to press the doctors with questions? What if the doctors hadn’t changed his medications in those last hours before he died?
And then there is the grandchild part: Our older granddaughter wasn’t quite 4 when she last saw Jon. In the pandemic months that followed, he was just a face on Skype, a jolly face, but a two-dimensional one that froze every so often. Will she remember him?
For the widowed, there are countless ways to feel sad. I could keep on listing them.
Instead I’ll go straight to the one that haunts me most. And that is — the pity I feel for my dear Jon, the sorrow and pity for the life that was taken from him so abruptly and so capriciously.
But alongside that pity is an even greater sorrow, the crushing sadness I feel when I realize that Jon, as he lay dying, might have known, guessed, feared that his life was ending.
Words Were Needed
I was there when my mother died in the emergency room at Stanford Medical Center in 2010. She looked right at me when I came into the room, but she couldn’t speak. So I stroked her head again and again. Speaking for my brothers and myself, I repeated the words, “We love you, Mom. And we know that you love us.”
I was pretty sure that those were the words my mother needed to hear and wanted to say as her long life came to an end. So I said them over and over on her behalf.
But I wasn’t there when Jon died. I couldn’t hold his hand or see his face or say any words for him.
A folder of certified death certificates sits on my desk. Every once in a while I’ll take one out to mail to an accountant or attorney or government agency. Otherwise, I do not look at the death certificates. They are too real. They break my heart.
As He Lay Dying
But one day, a month or two ago, I finally pulled myself together to take a closer look at the death certificate. Maybe there would be a small, important detail waiting to be revealed. If so, I didn’t want to miss it.
And there it was: “Cause of death. Pulmonary embolism.”
I knew that.
But next to it was: “Time Interval Between Onset and Death: 1 HOUR”
I hadn’t known that.
One hour? A full hour had passed between the time Jon began gasping for breath and a crew of doctors rushed to resuscitate him — and the moment his heart beat for the last time?
Did Jon know he was dying — for an entire hour?
I will stop writing now. That’s enough for today. Enough for me. And probably enough for you as well.
No, Jon did not suffer for an entire hour. Here’s what a young ER doc has to say about that: “Widowed: Did He Die in Anguish?” . . . Some more stories about Jon at “Jonathan Newhall, My Husband of Forty-Four Years.” Also at “Lucky Me, I Told Jon Newhall I Loved Him.”
Dear Barbara. My condolences to you and your family.
Thank you, Andre. Thank you very much.
Hi Barbara, As you suggested, I began reading your blog. It is not unusual to not be able to do the things you normally did before Jon died. You have just begun your personal grief journey. I look forward to perhaps meeting you in the future. Take care,
Merrilee Harter Mitchell
Facilitator: Widows/Widowers Grief Recovery of the Eat Bay
Thanks for this, Merrilee. It slipped downscreen last November, and I missed seeing until just now.
Barbara — That would be a shock, to see that “one hour” in print that you weren’t aware of before. Here’s another angle: Jon might have known for one hour that he was dying, but now he’s on the other side of that experience. He came through it, and now has a different perspective than he had while going through it. Just as we all have different perspectives on painful — even terrifying — experiences after they have passed. Sometimes those experiences are integrated and lead to growth. That is how I would see it, as to me the adage that “we are spiritual beings having a human experience” makes sense. From your sister EFM student.
I love that — we are spiritual beings having a human experience. That would explain a lot!
Dear. Barbara, How tears came to my eyes as I read this. I cannot even imagine how such an experience would hit me. I shared it with a distant relative whose husband died 2 weeks after his illness was diagnosed and she and her children have been unable to come to terms with losing him so suddenly.
Thank you for passing the post along to your relative. I hope it helps her to know that she is not the only one who is unable to accept the reality of what has happened so unexpectedly and abruptly. Right now it seems like I’ll never get used to the idea that Jon is gone. The key, maybe, is to find a way to have a life alongside the grief. We’ll see!
This hits me as a fine way to start … living alongside our grief. Thanks.
Thank you, Nancy. I like that — “living alongside our grief.”
We’re you not allowed entry into the hospital? How sad! Could you watch on a monitor? Our neighbors could not be with their daughter as she lay dying at University of Michigan Hospital during the pandemic lockdown. She had to die alone.
Jon’s death was sudden and unexpected. He had been admitted for a mild stroke, therapy had been scheduled, and I had been able to talk to him on the phone. Then out of the blue he had a pulmonary embolism. The doctors were shocked that this happened.