One Month

This morning is one month since G died.

One month since I woke up to find he was already awake - he was having such trouble sleeping because of the pain and difficulty breathing.

One month since we came downstairs together and talked at the kitchen table while I sipped my coffee and he drank orange juice. He refused breakfast. Was that a sign? We talked for about 45 minutes and oh how I wish I could remember what we talked about. I probably just rattled off random things to him. He always wanted to talk, but by that he always went he wanted me to talk to him! It drove me crazy sometimes, haha. He was the verbal one!

One month since he spent the morning sleeping on the couch with me getting him medicine to help the pain and nausea. I made Christmas cookies (sometimes with P - sometimes P just played LEGOs). I tried getting him to eat with his medicine but he could only stomach a few saltines. Or saltinias - our family's goofy name for them.

One month since UN came around 10 or 11 and I went for a walk - it was about 30 minutes and it felt like such a good and needed break. But I've struggled with that walk since he died. Had I known he would die that night, I wouldn't have left.

One month since I came back from the walk and his pain was worsening.

One month since things quickly unraveled: a call to the on-call coordinator, a decision to wait and decide later about going to the ER, a painful trip upstairs to try to get more oxygen from the machine, a conversation about what was happening and his decision to not go to the hospital and to let us call hospice.

Telling his brothers. Telling our son. Holding him and crying. Taking our last family pictures. Recording a video for our son. Somehow him getting downstairs. The call to hospice. The family friends helping (one talking to G, one playing with P outside). Hospice arriving and leaving. G not being able to breathe. Hospice coming back. "He has a few hours now". P getting one last snuggle and bringing him a treasure chest LEGO full of heart shaped LEGOS. Slowly, slowly him stopping to breathe and his heart stopping to beat surrounded by me and UN and UT. Us loving him and praying for him and touching him until the end and weeping over him when he was gone. The decisions. The calls. Sitting with him. Talking to him. Laughing and crying as we sat with him. Taking turns to say goodbye. The men coming to take him to the funeral home. Stepping outside. Giving him a kiss goodbye on the gurney outside. Him being wheeled away. Going inside and taking pictures of things I didn't want to forget and us cleaning the house. Falling into an exhausted sleep around 3:30 in the morning and waking up to the reality that he was gone. Gone. Just like that. In a blur.

From sitting at the table talking to gone in 17 hours.

How was that 1 month ago already? It feels like a lifetime and simultaneous it feels like it never happened.