My mother's biggest worry is that my sister isn't eating or drinking. Dr. Larry explained that, when a person is very ill, the body produces a hormone that suppresses hunger and thirst. He told my mother that it was sort of the body's way of dealing with the physical stress. Yesterday, the hospice nurse noticed mottling on my sister's legs, which can be an indication that blood is pooling and death is imminent. Dr. Larry examined my sister's legs and said that the discoloration was due to broken blood vessels, not pooling blood. He isn't concerned about it. All my father could do was sit in his chair and cry, and Dr. Larry tried to comfort him.
When I stopped by my parents' house tonight, my nephew was sitting by my sister's bed, holding her hand and talking to her. Her eye was open, and it looked as though she was actually listening to him. Her jaw was slack, like she didn't have the energy to hold her mouth closed. After my nephew was done talking to her, I stepped over, took her hand, and told her that I had to give my son a bath. We had just come from a birthday party, and my son was covered in a layer of sweat and dirt and exhaustion. "He's a little grease ball," I told her and squeezed her palm.
In her book-length poem (or lyric essay) Bluets, Maggie Nelson, the Poet of the Week, writes about visiting a friend who has been in a serious car accident:
Some things do change, however. A membrane can simply rip off your life, like a skin of congealed paint torn off the top of a can. I remember that day very clearly: I had received a phone call. A friend had been in an accident. Perhaps she would not live. She had very little face, and her spine was broken in two places. She had not yet moved; the doctor described her as "a pebble in water." I walked around Brooklyn and noticed that the faded periwinkle of the abandoned Mobil gas station on the corner was suddenly blooming. In the baby-shit yellow showers at my gym, where snow sometimes fluttered in through the cracked gated windows, I noticed that the yellow paint was peeling in spots, and a decent, industrial blue was trying to creep in. At the bottom of the swimming pool, I watched the white winter light spangle the cloudy blue and I knew together they made God. When I walked into my friend's hospital room, her eyes were a piercing, pale blue and the only part of her body that could move. I was scared. So was she. The blue was beating.
I thought of this passage tonight as I stood by my sister, holding her hand, looking into her one blue eye that was open. I'm not sure if she was really seeing me. I'd like to believe she was. I know my sister doesn't want to leave our family. When she got home last week, as they were bringing her into the house, she said, "I couldn't be happier." My friend, who used to be a hospice nurse, heard her. My sister is surrounded by love. In her eye, I saw profound love. And profound sadness. Maybe it was simply a reflection of what I was feeling. But, like Maggie Nelson says, the blue of her eye was beating.
So, my question tonight for Ives is this:
Does my sister know that she is loved?
And the answer:
...He often awoke with a gasp in the middle of the night, his heartbeat accelerated, his breathing shallow, his heart filled with sadness, his head with memory.
I have to believe that my sister, in her very weakened state, has moments like this. Moments when she is able to think a little clearly, hear the voices of my nephew or son or mother, and feel both sadness and love.
At least, that's Saint Marty's hope.
Adventures of STICKMAN
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