From this life to the next

Written in May, 2023:

I've flown to Las Vegas 3 times in the last 2 months, all to sit by the bedside of my 92 year old Aunt Sue as she moves closer to death.  The 1st time was a last-minute flight after a fall and a broken hip, when death seemed imminent. When I said goodbye, I cried and she cried and we thought it was our last time together.

The next 2 times,  death was still imminent,  but I've grown to love this time with her.  I enter into a bubble, in the assisted living home.  It's a place where everyone who lives there has lived their lives:  worked in their careers, raised their children, gone through the hustle and bustle and worry and stress of life.  They're now just, well, waiting, for the next chapter.  If they're strong enough, they wheel, or slowly walk, and see their neighbors, or go outside to sit and listen to the birds, or sit for a meal in the dining room.  If they're not, it's a bed and sleep and some tv or some music or just lost in decades of memories of life.  If it's the worst, there are no memories.

I met 91 year old Norma, who is a Cherokee Indian, from Oklahoma.  She told me when she was young she went to the Pow Wow in Albuquerque, in full regalia.  Now, she doesn't see too well, and her daughter visits her when she's not traveling for work.

I met a man who worked in accounting in Boston.  Our visit was brief and I didn't get his name.

I met Ken, who lived across the hall from Aunt Sue, and would check on her as he went down to the dining room for dinner.

And my Aunt Sue, who was an elementary school librarian and a lifelong athlete.  Because of her, I love to read, and have a mean tennis backhand and swim like a fish.  Because of her, I love to travel and see new places.  Because of her, I am lost in a good book.

She had a hard time, the last decade, as her body started to give out.  She rarely rested in her life.  Walk, swim, golf, tennis.  Becoming elderly and full of pain and her body weakening made her afraid, and thus, angry.  It was a hard time for all of us 4 niece and nephews, who were her family.  Hard to love her sometimes.

And then, the fall.  The broken hip. The acceptance.  This is the last chapter.  She's ready to go.  There's no fight left.  And what remains is just peace.  And gratitude.  And lots of sleep.  And an occasional smile or chuckle.  (especially when I took my diary from when I was 9 years old and read it out loud to her)

I take knitting.  I've made 3 washcloths.  Given 2 to her, just because they're bright and a small square to hold, a pop of color.  A quilt may be brought next.  Something small in size and bright in color.

I am her namesake.  One of the stories she told me frequently over the phone in the last few years was that she was the 1st to hold me when I was born.  She helped my mom, her sister, raise us 4 kids.  (I joke that I'm her favorite, but secretly I want that to be true)

She is between 2 worlds now.  She sometimes knows I'm there and sometimes thinks I'm my mom.  She asks me where someone is, and I remind her they've passed away.

And that's alright.  I have the honor of spending time with her while she prepares for the next world, in peace, with memories, with love.  She is dearly loved.  It's important that she knows that.

Update/July 2023:  She passed away June 8, 2023.  My brother was by her side.  I asked him if I could FaceTime when he said it was near.  I cried and told her I loved her and my last words to her were "I'm your namesake.....I'm your namesake."  She passed from this world 20 minutes later.

I made a bag to hold the box that holds her remains.  We will gather in September in Alabama, where she retired and lived for 30 years.  In the deep South, she was known as "Miss Sue".  My siblings and I will spend a weekend together with her remains - celebrate her at a mass, visit the bay, eat at her favorite places and be together there one last time.

The bag is made from fabrics that reflect her time on earth:  playing tennis, golf, books, travel.  It started with the dimensions my brother sent me of the box containing her remains:

I choose some of Reut's hand echo printed fabric for the lining:

Update/September 2023:

And then we 4 all met in Alabama for one last time with Aunt Sue:

At the Fairhope Library

In a rocking chair in her last assisted living home in Fairhope. 

(There were 2 ladies rocking in the other chairs.  One said to me "I knew Miss Sue")

With Bucky, the renowned bartender at the Mobile Bay Grand Hotel, where she worked

At the Sunset Grill in Fairhope, where she was with us all at the center of the table and we bought her a beer and toasted her and shared memories.

And then we packed her in my brother's suitcase, where he took her to Pittsburgh and laid her to rest with her parents at the cemetery where they're buried.  I'll visit that place one day.  And I have the bag, stitched with fabric and thread and lots of love, and a memory of our final goodbye to our dear Aunt Sue.

And we 4 scrappy Kauffman kids will always be thankful for her presence in our lives: