Moving on

Go listen to I Remember Everything by Zach Bryan. That's the song that came on as I got in the car alone on a friday evening almost two weeks ago, after receiving a call from the ICU to come down. Armenio had just died half an hour before when I walked into the curtained room with that song still in my head. B was wrapped in a heated hospital blanket, crying and stroking his hair and talking to him, his skin was already an unnatural colour, I can't get his mouth to close, she said. We sat with him for another hour, couldn't open a window, though it felt like his spirit wanted to hang out with us rather than depart. She told me how the last few hours had been so peaceful, so unlike the usual experience with our medical system: respectful, calm, dignified, caring, authentic, validating. A big burly firefighter who came to bring aremnio from home to hospital who kept giving B hugs, a portuguese nurse, a quiet room and a familiar nurse and doctor, no interventions, no monitors, no beeping and vitals. Only a little medication to help ease the death rattle when it came and then a quick listen with a stethoscope after B told them she thought he had breathed his last. Walking out of the room was strange, leaving his body there. A beautiful sunset outside and life; traffic, the ocean, the forest, an angry husband with yet another broken down truck with kid in tow. Could I come give him a boost, canadians are so fake, no one helped him, fuck this etc etc. B hadn't eaten all day, she wanted to come home with me and not to a house strewn with needles and catheters and diapers and blood glucose monitors and pill blister packs and a hospital bed and sweaty sheets and no Armenio. I fed her the salmon dinner hamish had been on his way to deliver, wrapped her up in blankets, felix showed her all his cars as usual, hamish slept in the camper. She woke up in the middle of the night and said she felt the touch of death. I felt Armenio's presence clearly for about a week after his death. Mostly in the house, going out the door, I turned to look back up at the landing where he always leaned against the railing and waved goodbye to felix and I. Or just watching what we were doing and saying. But also at my house, when I lit a candle for him or on my balcony, pulling in laundry off the line, when I had a drink and couldn't stop weeping the next day. But then sometimes there was a sense that he was still around but further afield, in prince george or in portugal. And the day after the cremation I think, I was doing dishes and thought his name and he felt much farther away but he showed up, the feeling of him, but like he had been busy and the feeling that came was that he had been with his parents, and they were much much farther away than portugal or prince george and that he was so much lighter and freeer than I ever knew him. Armenio without the pain. Maybe the feeling of his inner self, stuck at age 27 for example. And now when I'm at B's house, it just feels empty, not hollow, but that he's absent. We didn't plan a viewing but it happened anyway. I don't think they put makeup on him, I think it was just the red and yellow lights, john could probably tell me, but all of us who were there were shocked at how lifelike he looked. Like we walked in him sleeping...in a chapel, in a suit, with a burgundy blanket over him and flanked by teo white very tall candles. Tear jerker music was playing and I was the only one who didn't go up close to him, too freaky. Leaving there was even harder than leaving him at the hospital, because now his body was going to be burned, AND how could it because he looked very healthy and rosy cheeked even. B had to almost be forced away, she said he looked like a cute doll to be taken home. At the house, afterwards, we looked at pictures from the 60's, of Armenio, young and devastatingly good looking, in the army or on a beach in tan slacks and and shirt sleeves rolled up. It struck me, as someone interested in human biomechanics and movement, that he is the only one in all the pictures, who moves in a natural balanced way. His body is always perfectly stacked in those images, the eye gladly rests on him, just like watching a horse with fluid movement or a child who hinges at the hips and bends with straight shins. It was a small incongruous group who gathered. Neighbours, aqauintances. It bugs me a little that this man who had lifelong friends in two continents, who touched so many people's lives with his charm and his skill, had no blood relations there at the end, nor any of his life long friends, not his son, or brothers or anyone who knew him for more than 5 years, and that very casually. But there were tears regardless. I had spent the last night of his life with him. It was the second night I ever spent away from felix, the first being when he was 24 hours old. B texted at 1030 at night, could I come, and there was no question, just hopes and prayers that felix wouldn't wake in the night reaching out for a boob and finding a papa. Armenio had gone in on wednesday to get his infusion and was told that they wouldn't be giving him anymore. Basically they were oulling the plug. Hamish went to sit witheith him in oncology during the hours he was hooked up to the iv drip. That evening a priest came at Armenio's request and listened as Armenio unburdened his soul and forgave all and listed his regrets, his sins. Angola. Afterwards he had a bowl of Mama Soup, the most Armenio dish of them all, and barely had the energy to eat - he passed out immediately and slept till he died, mostly. Two days. He wasn't himself anymore anyway, not coherent, not aware. When I stayed with B on the thursday night, he had a fever, but slept without need of a cpap machine remarkably. He also got a prostate blockage since all meds had ceased a day before, and started to thrash and writhe and moan, needing to pee, trying to articulate it, unable to stand, eyes pleading but also unseeing. We couldn't give him a catheter obviously, and it became a long night. B and I slept an hour at a time, sometimes less, before being woken by Armenio's moaning, we'd sit with him, try to explain, try to keep him in bed. At 5, he'd had enough and we managed to get him, somehow, to the bathroom, clean him, keep him awake, get him to stand from the toilet again. I resorted to firm military voice which seemed to do the trick, I've also used it on my mother when in an emergency and she entirely loses her head. When I think of that night, I smell hot pee, and fever sweat. I feel hot damp flannel pyjamas, see a stubbled face, glazed eyes, an anguished and angry "Barbara!". I'm glad he didn't fall on our bathroom mission, he was still strong and solid. I'm glad I was there that night. I'm sad I didn't connect meaningfully with him when I saw him on the tuesday, upright and walking and looking everywhere for felix, but I had showed up alone that day. He did wave me goodbye from the railing on the second floor landing looking down at me as I went out the door. Felix started preschool today. I'm sad that he may just have dim memories of Tio. His legacy for felix may be a taste for sardines and portuguese buns, and how felix smacks his lips then says a satisfied ahhh after taking a long drink. Tio taught him that when felix was tiny and now it's such a part of our family ritual. And hamish has taken a turn for the intolerable since armenio passed. We had been doing quite well before, too. Direct proportionality. I booked him a call with the nurse practitioner and his liver shows very real damage, obviously. She's putting him on nalprexone and ordering more blood work to watch his liver enzymes and urged him to keep a drink diary and oh my god I gasped and laughed when I heard that, because, lady, you don't know alcoholics obviously. Or adhd'ers. The man knows how much he drinks, or rather I do and he doesn't think about it too closely. The man does NOTHING without external structure except use the toilet. Not sleep or eat or perform any hygiene tasks regularily or check emails or texts or voicemails or take his meds. And she thinks he'll start a consistent accurate daily record of his failings and shame, in litres!? "Ithink we're done here," I said, just before dinner, as the fight reached hyperbolic allegations against me. Felix and I had been taking vitamins and mineral pills before dinner, I had given him a 2500 IU of D, a gel cap which he loves, but closed everything up nd simoly walked out and drove away, barefoot, alone. no little kid asking me questions about how I was feeling or why papa wasn't coming or explaining to me how mowers work. I drove blindly, following my gut as I've driven so many times before, before, in my life before felix, and wound up on a clearing in a half grow mover cut block with the sun going down in my eyes and everything backlit. I yelled and ranted and asked for a healthy and happy and kind man and realized I probably have to be those things before I can attract those things. Not the man part. Though I have become more masculine by necessity - a common occurence in women with underperforming husbands, unwell men, addicted dysfunctional partners. I droveback when i was calm, a blackberry vine stuck in between grill and hood, and walked in to find felix and hamish watching a particularily unsuitable episode of the simpsons while eating dinner. felix was sitting half a meter away from the table, eating oily sprats with the lid of the yogurt container as a lid, dripping oil, eyes glued to the screen and not registering anything else. Hamish had obviously resorted to his default parenting mode of lets watch something. The unhelpful comments about breastfeeding started up again. I will forever be mad at him for not supporting me in this. Big time loss of points, pal. His mother said in May, you don't take that way from that little boy, after all he's been through. and that gave me immunity for three months, but no longer. Guess someone's gonna have to deal with it when felix is five and still doing booby occasionally. if he wants, of course. I really should meditate. and do yoga. My self care is scratching my sheep till they close their eyes and smile in ecstacy and snuggle felix. And he doesn't even want to snuggle during the day as much anymore.