LEAVING: THREE VIEWS

Linda

The obituary will say that Ron passed away quietly, but it is not quiet here now. There are paramedics who have asked us to leave the room as they assemble their equipment and try to bring Ron back; I want to tell them to leave him alone, his body has been through enough. But I am busy answering questions for a police officer and showing him Ron's ID and wondering where the cat is. Bonnie and my best friend Chris are in the kitchen and Allen is in the dining room, telling an officer that his dad has just fallen asleep.

Then the policeman sadly shakes his head at me and says, "Time of death, 9:43" which is ludicrous because Bonnie and I walked in the door at 9:10 and found him in his chair, already still. 

Allen shouts, "My dad's not dead!" and runs up the stairs. Chris hugs Bonnie and Bonnie takes out her phone to call her husband and her older brother and I know I need to make phone calls to Ron's family, but I cannot find my own phone. I walk back into the living room; Ron has been covered with a pink sheet and it seems an odd choice for my big, burly husband.

My purse is on the floor where I dropped it and I take out my phone, but the battery is running low. A policeman is at the door, and he tells me the medical examiner will need to come out because Ron's death was unattended.

 I want to protest, because Ron has always been tended to. The Saturday aide was here until 5 and Allen was upstairs, and Bonnie and I were on our way home. But I nod my head and agree not to move or touch Ron--as if I could move a man who weighs over 300 pounds--and I grab the landline. The front door is open, and I spy the cat crouching at the open door. I scoop him up and hand him to someone--Jared, maybe? --and tell him to put the cat in my room. 

Bonnie's husband puts the cat upstairs and goes to join Bonnie on the porch, and I heard other voices on the back deck. Dennis and Laura. All of my children are here. I think of how many times we have all gathered for a surgery or an emergency and how they have always come, pacing floors and offering hugs and holding hands.

Chris hands me a cup of tea and I start to cry.