Last Breath

It was a quiet afternoon.
Outside the world was moving from fall into the coolness and frost of winter, when the world sleeps. Leaves were still thick on the ground in the backyard, and the sun had finally come to peek it's face out from behind the clouds. A bright day.
I had slept the night through, waking up occasionally to look over and see that she was still there, that she was breathing. It was a long watch, a watch that had lasted almost five full days. Every day the end was coming closer, and every day that passed hope grew smaller.
"Go get some air," my aunt said to me. "You should go on a walk. Take your phone and I will call you if something happens."
I was so relieved by her suggestion, as a part of me wanted to escape from the tension and the approaching final moment that frightened me. I felt guilty for wanting to leave, like if I left then she might not be there when I got back. That she would slip away if I turned my back for even the barest second.

Walking around the block, I took the long way up the hill and felt my legs burn as I climbed, felt my lungs filling with the chill fall air. Thank God I am alive. With each step I prayed a small thankful prayer, more thought than words, grateful that I could move and breath and see. I passed houses where people were probably living normally, without death hanging over them and with no thought of how close it must be. Looking up to the sky I watched clouds swirl past, watched branches sway slowly. Life was going on, and I couldn't help but think to myself that no matter what happened or when it happened that life would go on. It would just be a different life. It would be a painful life.

When I arrived back to the front porch I found my brothers smoking with my Uncle, all of them coming out together for a cigarette break. We talked about the holidays, about my brother's university schedule, about the clear day. Suddenly the door swung open and my aunt's face appeared.
"Guys, come in, now." She was not loud or sudden but urgency was in her eyes and her tone. We rushed in behind her, my brothers hastily dropping cigarettes and forgetting to leave shoes by the door.
My dad was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down into the bright room where she was laying on the hospital bed.
"I think she's gone," he said, his voice cracking and his shoulders shaking a little. "I think Mom is gone."
I stopped and hugged him tight hoping that some of my strength flowed into him,willing hime to be strong... then I took a deep breath and went down the stairs to where everyone was gathered around her bed, the nurse standing over her and the smell of lemon-scented bleach hanging around us. The first thing I heard was the silence...she was not breathing in the same raspy, open mouthed way that she had been for the last two days. It was quiet, and I felt like all of the air was being squeezed out of me, my throat was closing and I thought I would choke on a scream or a sob that was trying to make it out of my mouth. I sat on her right side, leaning close over her bed to where her head lay raised on the pillow.
"This is it," the nurse said quietly, her round frame glasses glinting in the golden fall light. "She is going."
Leaning down close to her I could still see a vein in her neck moving, slowly pumping blood. But her breathing was still, her chest did not rise and fall.
"I love you, Mom," I whispered, leaning close and speaking into her salt and pepper puff of hair. "I love you."
We all sat together around her, my brothers holding her hands, touching her shoulders, my aunts and grandmother and dad and uncle all around her, all quiet and teary as slowly, slowly her pulse stopped and the silence became deeper and deeper.
I started crying, my hand searching for a tissue and my grandma next to me pulled me into a hug.
"She is gone." The nurse stood by the bright window, watching us all.

Mom was gone, she was beyond our earthly reach now, and I couldn't help but imagine her arriving to heaven, her face wiped free of exhaustion and sickness, stepping into the embrace of my grandfather, into the arms of God.

After feeling so grateful for the beautiful day, for my working body for nature around me, I couldn't help but feel grateful and blessed that in the last moments, on her last breath, that Mom had us all aorund her.