The Nightingales

You know, death follows me around like a wet mitten. My last death counseling sequence ended a month ago with the death of the comotase old lady who was injured by her neighbor's car while she bent down gardening. Oh, I tried with that family to just 'let her go' but they wouldn't. Okay then. Not my fault and then after she died, her granddaughter called me and gave me the best news: It was exactly as you said it would be.

There is no better compliment to a nurse. Nurses have the power to see into the future of death in many instances and chart the way through the final corridors because we traipse along through them so often carrying this and that and the other thing. Diapers to syringes, broths and electric paddles, and of course, marching orders called DNRs (Do Not Resusitate).

So I met my next guest about a month ago. Oh, we didn't know what was about to occur when we so gleefully set out to 'teach me' Arabic together (yes it was a cooperative effort as all teaching/learning cases are). It was all so innocent back then. Four weeks of pure bliss in which I did my homework on schedule and my teacher knew exactly what I needed next. There was absolute trust.

Then his wife got lung cancer. Oh, I knew right away it was a sign...but the teacher did not. He was in a fog of hope and illusion. "It can't be," to which I countered, "perhaps it is not." Then "It is," to which I countered "I know."

I reminded him yesterday about his hopes and refused the lesson he offered me. I knew he was not much of a teacher any more. More like a lost child and trying hard not to cry all the time. Anyway, for some crazy reason this man gave me the miracle I'd always hoped would come without any 'hard labor' in a matter of four weeks...and I can now read Arabic. Not perfectly but pretty damn good for a month old endeavor. I'm already more indebted to him that he can ever know because now I can actually see words written in the Quran in their truest forms. I can never pay him back for that, if only he knew!

So yesterday, I turned away our notebooks and told him that we needed to talk. You see, last month he had no Lord and told me he was a "scientologist". This month he yelped at the accusation of Lordlessness to which I said, "Good. I thought so." At the end of that lesson I went home feeling as if I had bruised his soul, caused more injury than good in taking the biggest of risks with this newest witness to 'great dying' as are all future widows and widowers. I had only done that in order to treat that which is untreatable: death. I only wanted him to go to her in the UK because I know that when one person dies, so do many, in their hearts. To treat a patient in one country and his counterpart in yet another is impossible. You see, my teacher hates death and doesn't want to see it and has sent his love to better climes to try to save the day. He voluntarily split up the patient. I knew why I finally had decided to learn Arabic after some twenty five years of living with it. It was because I will always need more opportunities to help someone out when at last they understand they need it.

The next day however, yesterday, my teacher called me. He cried and promised to reconsider rejoining his other half in order to give her her last rites, those of final important witnessing to their days together which are surely to come to an end very soon. Just as my teacher had decided suddenly to revive his belief in the afterlife, he decided to reconsider facing death by going to hold her hand in the UK while she waits to leave this life. That wait can be such a long one and isn't it for us all! Personally, I think they are lucky to have had the warning so that they could plan the steadier course. Not everyone gets that chance you know.

Why me? Why not me? I've been to death's door so many times now and know where they hide the keys, most of them anyway except perhaps, my own.

All nurses who are good at their jobs do this kind of thing day to day but all you hear about is the pain and suffering and bedpans. In truth, nurses are the best anchorites and never ever can you pay them enough for what it is they help another to carry. It is what I miss most about being a full time nurse. For now, I'm just lucky enough to once in a while be able to volunteer.