Vigil, chapter 2: The End

5:00 PM, Monday September 28, 2009

Bach’s Violin Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Major BWV 1042. 3rd movement; Allegro assai. That was the music playing when Ed took his last breath, a little before noon today. I’m glad I was there, not so much for myself, because frankly, I’m sort of with the Navajo on this whole death thing; holding a dying loved one’s hand, however noble the concept, is in practice rather upsetting, to say the least. For one thing, it leaves a very sticky memory, that I have a hunch will be very hard to be quit of. I doubt I could afford a full blown Navajo Holyway sing, but at least a good, purifying sweat lodge seems in order. Gotta be one out west somewhere, where a well-behaved white-eyes would be welcome.  And since out west is where Hunter S. and the Sabbatmobile await my return, I’ve got to back out sometime.

On the other hand, letting a loved one –or anyone, for that matter- die alone unnecessarily seems just way bone-deep wrong, so wahdahyahgunna’do? Put on some Bach, hold a hand, and just be there, I guess. All the “how to do this” hospice pamphlets suggest that talking to the dying is important, so I talked too. I hope that at the very least, Ed didn’t find all this irritating; maybe he was sick to death of Bach, and would have preferred I just shut up, turn out the light and stop bothering him. He didn’t say one way or the other. I was able to alert mom in time for her to return and be with him at the last moment, for which she was profoundly grateful. That was very important to her, and the truth is?   Ed really did seem to hang in there, by the slenderest of threads, until she arrived. I know, I know; no way to prove that this wasn’t just coincidence. But still. And then too; lore is chock-full of stories suggesting that such things do occur, and occur often. And lore is not to be lightly dismissed; lore is, after all, the well from which humans draw the stories we tell each other about the way things are, otherwise known as, “reality”.

And now it’s the blizzard of phone calls, banal decisions, food-gifts, tears and stories, and all the rest of the death-ritual falderal my people do. I understand my role, know my lines. As an angry young man I rejected all this, on angry young man principle. But I’m not an angry young man anymore, and while I may not know exactly what I am now instead, I do understand this much; that it’s not about me, and that to just play the role as best I can, is probably the best I can do.