Companion

You stood there as almost all the members of Dad’s side of your small family woke up to assemble. You were ‘on watch’, waiting for the inevitable. Grandmama was already never going to wake up again, but her heart was going to pretend otherwise long enough for everybody to arrive. Different groups slept in different areas thanks to sibling rivalries that wouldn’t even take a break to mourn one woman that everyone loved, but that’s just life.

That tiny little room was loud. Oxygen machine that was apparently powered by a chainsaw hooked up to her made it tough to even talk in that room. But you still knew the look on the nurses face when she turned to you after it had started beeping when she said “it’s time”.

Straight to Dad and the two words repeated. Mom. Lana. Heather. Lauren. And so on. Everyone woke up quickly enough because it’s not like anyone was really sleeping despite being three days in. The loud machine noise. The beeps becoming more sporadic. When everyone was in the room the nurse turned it off and reached down to hold her right hand. Someone else held her left though you’ve forgotten who. The nurse held the right hand with both of hers to provide warmth and human contact to know when the pulse had retired.

It feels like that is a moment that ought to have lasted an eternity but it wasn’t very long at all. At most 5 to 10 minutes. The nurse was far more professional than empathetic, and you have to admit that for some reason that actually helped. You were close enough to hear her over the machine “that’s it”… Or something like that. Could barely hear her. No “sorry for your loss”; Just a professional – though still very human - Delivery Of the news you all had expected four weeks in general and days now in specific, before Moving off to the side to make room as she stepped over to the machine that you couldn’t imagine this room without now. The transition of a loved one from alive to dead had no effect on you because you couldn’t tell due to her coma.

But it was then that the moment happened you will never forget. it’s not like anyone knew what to say even if they could say anything, But then the nurse reached over and turned off the oxygen to grandma’s now corpse.

Absolute deafening rumble instantly became absolute deafening silence. With but one exception.

It was a high-end hospice nursing home room with generic Decor, and with the rumbling of the oxygen machine finally silenced a sound that had been there all along obscured by it.

Tick. Tick. Tick Tock. The faint sound blared nonetheless in the utter silence of a little white wall clock.

There are occasionally moments where you realize truths in life in very easy to understand ways… And then there are the moments when reality flexes its muscles and hits you as hard as it can right between the eyes.

It had been there all along. You couldn’t hear it because of the man-made efforts to prolong her life, But then it came fullbore into your consciousness.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

You didn’t feel bad for grandmama in the slightest. Long, good life. Sure a bad marriage to a wife-beating bastard before she finally kicked him to the curb, but two wonderful children and two wonderful grandchildren – three if you count yourself, lol. You don’t remember ever seeing her face not smiling. And she died in peace in her late 80s surrounded by her loved ones.

So what about you? Tick. What plans do you have for the second half of your life? Tock. You beat yourself up constantly feeling as if you haven’t come anywhere close to living the kind of life you could have lived. Tick. But as you look around at people leaping into mistakes you didn’t make you think your lucky stars sometimes you are here and not somewhere far worse. Tock.

Ironic that one of the wisest takes on the concept of time you got from one of the lesser beloved Star Trek movies where Picard describes time not as an enemy, but a companion that we take along the way  of our journey through life. As you actually grow a beard for the first time you see so many ‘blonde’ hairs and try to take your own advice for once.

You hear the Tick and the Tock. Here now your life is in stasis as your next steps and challenges are decided for you by people hundreds of miles away… take heart in the bad decisions you didn’t make every time you limit the good decisions you missed out on.

Every single thing is a product of the journey that you have taken through life. Sure you could’ve done better.  Could have done worse. But you are who you are because of the decisions that you have made one way or another. Your experiences have made you who you are… and growing older and wiser teaches you that you need to be…more… now.

Because… it’s time. 🙂

And while Time has now begun to tap you on the shoulder like the slave once did to the victorious Roman general… it is not a reminder of regret… but so you cherish each moment as best you can, so that when all is said and done… The time you have spent here on this world will have had meaning. And so long as there was one person whose life has been improved by you being in it… it will. 🙂🙏🕊