We arrived at the hospital to relieve my uncles that had spent the night at my Grandmother's bedside. It had been determined quickly and seamlessly that she would not be left alone at anytime. The nurses spoke of physical signs of looming death: mottled skin, a change in nail color, something about the feet. I had never heard of these things before.
A hospital administrator arrived and announced what everyone feared: Medicaid was bucking at the daily cost of the hospital and wanted my Grandmother moved to hospice.
"We are afraid of moving her," my mother said, "all of the jostling. It's not that we don't want her in hospice, we are afraid of transporting her in this condition.....".
"I understand," the administrator said, "but we can only push Medicaid so far....".
Shortly after, the paramedics arrived. I felt a seize of terror. I didn't think I could watch them lift her, watch them move her, but I felt like I had to. The bundled her carefully in blankets until only her head poked out like a little cotton ball. The moved her gently to the gurney and rolled her out as we followed. I still felt terrified, but was surprised by how smoothly they had moved her. My mother went in one direction with the paramedics to ride in the ambulance with my Grandmother and I went toward the parking lot. I passed the massive, larger than life manger scene by the parking lot and looped around a huge camel to my mother's compact rental car. I bumped my head on the ceiling, started the car and followed the ambulance to the hospice.
I drove through Saginaw. The sky was still very gray. I started getting worried about what the hospice would be like after taking a turn at a county juvenile lock up and driving past a large, impersonal hospital. I was surprised to see things suddenly become pastoral and after passing a large barn, a nice looking building with white columns came into view. I could see the ambulance pulling into a side garage. The garage seemed ominous to me, the place where everyone arrived and left, shielded from view because death is so uncomfortable. My uncle paced the parking lot until I parked the car and we went in the front door together.
The hospice administrator spoke about their services with my mom and uncle while my Grandmother was made comfortable in her room. I looked at my mom and uncle, seated next to each other on a couch, making decisions about my Grandmother's care. It seemed like an odd coming of age moment that had never occurred to me before, one of the important moments in life that you don't spend with your spouse, but with your sibling. I saw similarities in their faces and thought processes that I had never noticed before.
I was relieved that my Grandmother was at the hospice the minute we were permitted to enter her room. It was comfortable and lit with lamps. She was tucked in cozily; the oxygen thing that had irritated her nose was gone. A small dose of morphine, "the heroin" as one of my uncles would later call it, had relaxed her breathing and she seemed much more natural and comfortable than she had in the hospital.
Others arrived and my mother and I returned to my uncle's house. We viewed and made recommendations about the clothes my aunt had bought for my Grandmother to be buried in. I again had never really realized that people went shopping for that. The clothes were all red. My Grandmother had requested to be buried in red.
Later, my mother and I made preparations and returned to the hospice. We were going to be taking the night shift. It was Tuesday evening.
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