It was cool enough in the Saint Francis parking garage that I didn’t have to worry about leaving Corky in her kennel. Besides, it had an automatic fan that would kick in if needed. “Stay, girl. You got plenty of water, and I’ll be back to check on you soon as I can.”
By the time I got up to Mom’s room, Estelle was already there. She reached out and pulled me close as I approached the bedside. The beep, beep, beep of the monitor was the only assurance Mom was still alive. For reasons I couldn’t quite identify, she actually looked like she was gone. Her face was vacant, gray, and seemed to sag.
“What’d they say?”
Estelle shook her head as she stared at my mother. “Hardly anything. Just that they had to resuscitate her and they’re about to take her down for a CAT scan.”
“Resuscitate? What about her DNR order?”
Estelle shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Has the doctor been in?”
She shook her head. “I just got here a couple minutes before you.”
A businesslike nurse bustled in and asked us to wait outside. “We need to get Mrs. Bentley ready for transport.”
I stepped aside but asked, “Where’s she goin’?”
“Down for a CAT scan.”
“Last time they did an MRI. Why the change?”
Without looking at me, the nurse said, “You’ll have to ask the doctor.” But I had the impression she knew more than she was letting on.
“Not this morning, but I’ll let him know you’re here. He’ll probably meet with you after the CAT scan.”
We stepped out into the hall and stood there in silence, staring . . . without seeing each other or the decorator prints on the wall or what was going on at the other end of the corridor. When the patient transporter finally arrived and wheeled Mom out and down the hall, we drifted aimlessly along behind like we were walking in a fog until we reached the nurse’s station where Estelle leaned over the counter. “Would you let us know when Mrs. Bentley comes back up or when her doctor gets here? We’ll be in the waiting room.”
“Sure thing.”
There was no one else in the waiting room, and Estelle sat down and bowed her head over folded hands. I picked up an old copy of Car and Driver and thumbed through it without finding anything of interest.
“You think they ordered that CAT scan ’cause it’s cheaper? Maybe they’ve given up on her.”
Estelle raised her head and gazed at me thoughtfully. “I really don’t know, Harry.” She bowed again over her clasped hands then abruptly looked up. “But ya know, hon, suspicion doesn’t do much good at a time like this. I’d say, if you got that question, you should ask the doctor straight up, and put it to rest.”
I tried to flush the suspicion out of my mind, but the questions still niggled around the fringes.
Half an hour later, the doctor came in and sat down to give us his report. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, frowning as if he were trying to think of the best way to break hard news.
“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Bentley, this was a massive bleed, a subdural hematoma, which we usually see in head injuries. But sometimes it occurs spontaneously as a form of stroke. We might take some heroic measures to relieve the pressure, but I seriously doubt whether your mother will ever regain consciousness. And even if she does, the damage from this incident on top of her previous strokes would leave her so impaired that she would be . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence, but I heard the word he was thinking: vegetable.
It made me angry. If Mom regained consciousness, she wouldn’t be a vegetable, no matter how impaired. “Why’d you give her a CAT scan instead of an MRI? Was it because it’s cheaper?”
He looked taken aback. “Uh . . . uh, yes, in one sense a CAT scan is cheaper, but they are also better for some things. Better in a case like this with a very recent bleed. The MRIs told us how extensive the older damage was, but this bleed is ongoing, and a CAT scan shows it very precisely.”
I glanced at Estelle. The gentle look on her face held no condemnation. I turned back to the doctor. “But you said there were some things you could do that might help. What?”
“Well, there’s medication, of course, that might slow the bleed. But we’re talking about a very delicate balance here. We don’t want to create clots, which was probably the source of her first stroke. Beyond that we could drill one or more holes in her skull in hopes of relieving the pressure. However, this hemorrhage was so massive, I’m not sure we would succeed.”
“And if you don’t do anything?” I asked.
He looked away and then back as he took a breath. “The pressure will increase on her brainstem until she expires. Her respiration’s already suppressed, probably as a result of the increased pressure.”
I leaned back trying to absorb the horror of them drilling holes in my mother’s head until the doctor broke into my nightmare with a further complication. “If that’s the way you decide to go, we’d probably better get her on a ventilator as soon as possible. But you need to realize that mechanical ventilation does not insure her survival. And any meaningful recovery is highly unlikely.”
“But not impossible?”
“Mr. Bentley, how do I answer that question? I am a Christian. This is a Catholic hospital. I have witnessed what I would call miracles. None of us wants to see our loved ones pass, but even the Bible says we are all appointed to die at some point.”
My head fell forward so I was staring at my lap, but the doctor’s confession of faith felt comforting. I glanced sideways at Estelle. She was looking steadily at me.
I finally realized the doctor was still waiting patiently.
“If this were your mother, what would you do?”
He drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly in a silent whistle. “I would not put her on a ventilator. I would let her go.”
I felt Estelle’s hand reach for mine. I turned and looked into her dark eyes. They glistened until they overflowed in a small trickle down her cheek, her lips pursed tightly together. I was not alone as the room swam and swirled amid my own tears. “I think . . . I think that’s our decision too, right, babe?”
She nodded slowly and pulled me closer.
Mom passed peacefully three hours later, and we spent the rest of the day contacting family and friends and making plans.
The first person I called was Rodney. After several moments of silence, he said, “I had wanted to come up and see her.”
What could I say? You could’ve if you wanted to? Or, She was unconscious and wouldn’t even have known you were there? But I got ahold of myself. “Yeah. That’s too bad, son. Hey, we’re gonna go get DaShawn out of school to tell him, but then we’ve got lots of other stuff to plan and do. Will you be home so he can stay with you?”
“I’ll be here.”
I’m sure DaShawn knew what was up as soon as he got the message to report to the office. His eyes were wide when he walked in and saw us standing there in front of the counter. He ran the last couple steps to give me an unembarrassed hug. Estelle wrapped us both in her warm arms.
During the ride back to the house, DaShawn asked lots of questions about what had actually taken his great-grandmother’s life. Maybe this was his way of objectifying it all so it wouldn’t hurt so much. The four of us had sandwiches for a late lunch, and then Estelle and I set out to take on the avalanche of decisions and plans we had to make.
After talking to Pastor Cobbs, we decided on a Saturday homegoing celebration, since there weren’t but a couple of family members who might come from a distance. The whole process was something I’d never done before.
It had been nearly twelve years since my father died, and I hadn’t even gone down to Atlanta for his funeral. I was still pretty angry with him for abandoning Mom and me when I was just a kid. Had seen him only a couple of times since he left us, and both times weren’t my choice—at the wedding of a cousin and once when he looked me up and wanted to borrow some money. I was a hotshot rookie cop at that point and told him I’d throw him in jail if he ever showed his face to me again. Didn’t have any idea what I would’ve charged him with, but it was enough to scare him off for the rest of his life.
By the time he died, I was too busy in Special Ops at the CPD to break away. Sent flowers, though, and spent the evening after I got off duty at The Office, my favorite watering hole, toasting him with curses. It was my way of burying all memory of him. I was lucky to get home that night without crashing my car and picking up a second DUI.
But Mom’s passing was different.
This time I wouldn’t be going to The Office, but Estelle insisted I go to my men’s Bible study. “You gotta share it with them, Harry, for your own good. Let ’em come alongside you, pray with you. I mean, those brothers are your closest friends. Don’t lock ’em out at a time like this.”
During the day we’d made arrangements with the House of Thompson in Evanston to take care of Mom’s body and host the visitation Friday evening, and we talked some more with Pastor Cobbs to plan Mom’s homegoing celebration for Saturday afternoon at SouledOut. He knew just what to do and contacted everyone necessary at the church. Estelle called Manna House and informed them she wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week. And Captain Gilson told me to take off whatever time I needed.
Poor Corky. I don’t think she had any idea why I cut short her evening walk as soon as she did her business and hustled back to the house. But I think she knew something was wrong.
The men in my Bible study were concerned about how I was doing. “I’m okay,” I assured them, though I hadn’t even had time to think about how I was doing.
But Ben Garfield, the older Jewish believer in our group, wouldn’t let me off so easily. “Ha! Okay you’re not when your own mother dies. Nobody is. So don’t be telling me you are. What’s wrong with you?” And then he went on to tell us about the death of his mother. To his credit, he kept his story shorter than usual. “Oy vey!” He rolled his eyes. “When you least expect it, the bekhi—the crying—it will come over you. It will not be denied.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I figured he might be right about me not being as okay as I thought I was, especially when Peter Douglass asked me what songs we were going to have at Mom’s homegoing celebration.
I’d left all that to Pastor Cobbs and Estelle, but Peter’s question sent me back to the day I’d played Grace Meredith’s CD for my mother. It had been echoing in my head ever since. Suddenly, I had an idea. Would Grace sing it at the service? Didn’t have much hope she could, though, since Estelle said she was busy preparing for her West Coast tour.
Still, I mentioned the idea to Estelle that night as we crawled into bed.
“Mmm. S’pose I could ask. We’d planned to get together tomorrow to pray, but with everything going on, I was gonna call and cancel. But I’ll mention it and see what she says. Not sure when . . . ’cause I gotta start cookin’ for the repast.”
I snaked my arm around her and pulled her close. “Oh, babe,” I murmured in her ear, “that’s a lot of work. Why don’t you get someone else to do it?” I kissed her lightly on the neck.
She recoiled a couple of inches. “Like who, Harry? I’m the only professional cook around here.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Had to be careful here. “We’ve had some pretty good eats at our church potlucks, don’tcha think?”
“Pot-blessings, Harry, pot-blessings. We don’t leave the food to luck.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. I mean, your Yada Yada sisters put on a pretty good spread. Seems to me Sister Avis makes some decent mac-and-cheese. And who’s that Jamaican woman? Chanda? I really liked her rice and peas. And you can’t say Adele Scruggs don’t put her toe in those greens she cooks up. How ’bout Edesa’s enchiladas? They’re from south of the border if you ask me. And Florida Hickman’s potato salad is off the chain. Even you liked—”
“Okay, okay. Made your point.” She snuggled close again and yawned. “I’ll call my sisters and see what they can come up with.” She paused for a moment, then murmured, “Ya know, that’s a good idea, Harry. Thanks. Takes a real burden off me. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”
I breathed in the warm smell of her, feeling comforted by her presence after the shock and stress of the day. “Now, I gotta say, no one makes fried chicken like you, Estelle, but maybe if you told ’em how . . .”
“Ha! That’d take more time than doin’ it myself. We’ll just order in the chicken from Popeyes and maybe some ribs from Hecky’s. Gotta get some sleep now though, Harry.”
I didn’t get much sleep that night. A heavy weight pressed down on my spirit when I dozed off—then I’d wake up with a start, fighting the feeling that something terrible had happened, and it would flood in on me . . . my mom was gone. O God, I groaned inwardly. What now?
I was glad when morning arrived. Gotta keep busy. I spent most of Wednesday at the House of Thompson selecting a casket for Mom, signing papers, and then digging through dusty boxes in her old apartment to find her will.
Why we hadn’t asked her for a copy months ago—years ago—I’ll never know. Finally, I found it in a folder on paper yellowing at the edges. It was a short document, signed and dated properly as far as I could tell, and it left everything to me. But it named Rev. Winfred Johnson, her old pastor at Mount Zion Tabernacle on the South Side, as the executor. That church had been torn down in the urban renewal of the seventies, and I was sure Pastor Johnson had passed away long ago.
Nevertheless, the will was enough to convince our mutual bank to give me a summary of Mom’s accounts so I’d know what to expect. She didn’t have much. I’d be lucky if her assets covered her funeral expenses and other bills.
Made me wonder if that whole idea of her moving into the first floor of our two-flat would’ve worked financially. Just one more derailment. But maybe it wasn’t God jerking me around this time. Maybe I should’ve done more investigating.
That evening when the family gathered around the table for dinner, Estelle served spaghetti from a bowl I’d never seen before, and a matching one on the table held salad. A few moments later, she set a basket of bread in front of us. “Sorry, it’s not garlic bread.”
Seemed strange. She always made garlic bread with spaghetti, but maybe she didn’t have time. “You make all this today?”
“No way.” She sat down and slid her chair in. “I was runnin’ all over plannin’ the repast. We can give the Lord a special thanks for this meal, and you’ll never guess who brought it by.”
I waited, and it was obvious she wasn’t gonna tell us until I prayed.
When I said amen, DaShawn spoke up. “So where’d it come from?”
“Tim and Scott.” She pointed north.
I frowned. “The gay couple?”
“Don’t know how they heard about Mother Bentley’s passing, but they both came by to extend their condolences and brought us this meal. So I . . . well, I invited them to the homegoing celebration. I think they’re gonna come and bring their little boy too.”
I had no idea what to say and sat there with the whole thing swirling in my head so fast that I didn’t hear what Rodney said.
“Hallelujah!” Estelle burst out. “Praise the Lord! Now that’s bigtime answered prayer.”
I looked around the table. “What?”
Estelle wiped her mouth. “I said, that’s something else to praise the Lord for.”
“What is?”
“Rodney’s job.”
I looked at my son. “You got a job?”
“That’s what I said. Start tomorrow drivin’ for Lincoln Limo Service. Ya know, the cat at the end of the block.” He grinned at me with pride I hadn’t seen in his eyes since he learned to ride a two-wheeler as a little boy.