Lent Talks is a series of personal reflections inspired by an aspect of the story leading up to Easter. This year’s theme is the power of hospitality, based on Jesus’ encouragement in Matthew’s gospel to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and look after the sick. In this episode, the retired palliative care physician Dr Kathryn Mannix explores how to be a companion to the dying as she considers the words, “I was sick and you cared for me”. Producer: Dan Tierney.”]

On the same day that Barbara sent me a link to the Lent lecture on death, my friend Stefany sent me a beautiful voice message: “… every single day you are in my prayers…your blog is inspiring and thought-provoking…your view on life, it just helps us because I think we all need to remember that everyday we have here, despite the ups and downs is very precious and the memories, good and bad…they do form us into who we are…have a good day, I’m thinking of you, I love you, I’m always here if you need anything…”

Note:  understand that I “know” Stefany for many years, via blogging, but we have never met in person.
Think about that. Two friends sensed that I was in need and reached out.

I had been feeling uninspired about everything, but those two correspondences from my friends changed everything.

Let me get back to weaving the details of this tapestry. This morning I watched Delia Ephron, sister of the late Nora Ephron, tell her story on The Sunday Morning Show: a difficult tale of love and loss and the re-finding of love. But in the middle of it there was an event that I heard clearly: After her husband died, she decided to terminate the landline phone: A cutting, a disconnect reinforcing the finality of loss of communication. Does a person have to have passed on so that a phone line could be cut—The number banished?

Last year I let go of one of my landlines. When we moved to this house over thirty years ago, we established two phone numbers and were able to get almost corresponding mobile numbers. Letting go of one landline inched toward the traumatic but I did it. It was the end of an era and the beginning of a slightly lower phone bill.

Robert had not used his little flip phone for well over a year; it had been misplaced several times and almost lost twice as he was sent from facility to facility. He no longer answered it, he did not initiate any calls, he probably forgot  how to charge it, even, how to use it: Its era had died. This mode of communication was gone. In addition, it was old and “would not work on the new 5G network,” or so Verizon said in emails. So I removed it from his drawer and I took it home where it sat on my desk and looked at me. Sadly.

But the thought of letting go of Robert’s mobile number, was unthinkable.

Here I was, again, faced with a Delia Ephron moment. Should I maintain the number? Do I keep the number by having two lines on my mobile phone, something that is possible but unnecessary? Do I discard the number, just release it for a stranger to use, like a heart transplant, have it beat in another’s phone?

Is cutting off the number of a living person too symbolic? Prescient? Morally unjust?

I solved the dilemma with a face-to-face visit with a Verizon store rep: for $10/mo. the number was tethered to a “ghost” apple watch and for now, is kept as a memorial to the many phone calls it once made and received. The event of disconnecting a cell line when a person is gone or disabled is an event that is relatively new in our history. If you call the number now, you find yourself in phone-number-limbo. This event is symbolic of another form of Robert’s identification that has been peeled away.

So, conversations with Robert, if that is what we can call them, must be made in person. There is no more tether by wire or ether. It is raw, old-fashioned, face-to-face; but one face is masked. He hasn’t seen my face since November 2020. When I visit, I want to take notes or make a recording because I am always surprised by moments, the things that he says; like documenting a child’s development, I want to save them but I rarely do, immediately. I rely on memory. When I am visiting, in order to be “on” I have to swallow my emotions, I concentrate on maintaining a dialogue, but I run out of things to say. We stare at one another. I stop talking and hold his hand. I hide behind my mask but I am sure my eyes deceive me.

I often begin to cry.

On a recent visit with our son, I mentioned some issues with the house—a leak, an ant invasion. He thought for a moment and said, “thanks for taking care of that.” To get a response like that was, well, notable. Wonderful.

As we were about to leave, after a short period of silence, Robert said, and mind you, initiated conversation is rare: “Thanks for stopping by, it is always great to see you.” Throughout that visit, it was evident that he was listening. In the Lent podcast, it is mentioned that life is somehow reduced to moments of memory and appreciation. I noted that the room where Robert was now residing, (having been moved during Covid the second time), with three other denizens, was darkish: Didn’t he deserve something better? Wouldn’t he, this former science teacher, find great appreciation, of natural light?

The men with beds closest to the window would keep the curtains pulled. The curtained windows glowed. Then there is the light from a nearby fluorescent over the sink near his bed, and whatever was emanating from the hallway. A woman across the hall in a single room would keep the curtain open but there was no way Robert could even catch a glimpse of sunlight from his location.  I requested a room change. Again.

He lies on one side, usually away from the door, his thoughts bouncing off the divider curtain.

I do not think he ever turns his television on. The red call button was tangled on the floor, the bed controls hung on a rail nearby, the television control was somewhere. He lies in bed. That is it. His life. The pressure sores on his feet are propped up on air pillows. He responds politely: “yes, please; no, thank you; it’s OK.” I assume he waits for someone to come and tend to his needs but rarely if ever asks, he doesn’t call or reach out; I do not think that he can. I doubt he can connect the thought with the action. He must be an easy patient, this man who never stopped talking, joking, moving.

During the last few visits when I took his hand he would grip it, grip his friends’ hands. I would always say, “boy, you must be working out in the gym, what a grip!” If I were to mention how tightly and near pain he was holding my captive fingers, he’d grip even harder. He thought he was funny. And he now makes an up and down, controlled,  slapping, “potching” motion on the bed, on the hands of visitors. Was this his new version of a friendly gesture? Or maybe he is trying to say something and cannot find the words? Could those words be: “Don’t leave”? “I’m glad to see you”?

He listened to a discussion I had with his visiting friends and when I turned and included him in it, when I asked him a question, he contributed appropriately. In typical Robert fashion, his friend made a comment and Robert corrected the  choice of his form of English. Among? Between?

The Lent podcast indicates that the dying sleep more, eat less, so it is time “for small bites to savor.” During the last visit when we arrived, his eyes were closed, he was on his right side, as usual, facing away from the door. I greeted him, he responded, as though I were part of his sleep, a dream. I told him to open his eyes. He knew we were there.

On that day, I brought a small piece of his favorite pie, key lime, from Steve’s in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which a dear friend was kind enough to pick up.

I did not expect him to eat more than a bite, but after the first, he continued, until it was done; he has to be fed, patiently. Sometimes he needs a cue to open his mouth, sometimes he doesn’t respond to the cue properly, or locks his mouth shut, possibly a learned behavior when fed by an aide and not wanting more. “Do you want more? Ready?” “Yes.”

Eventually, that small slice of pie was gone. He drank a cup of ice water, and for a time, held the cup himself.