THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon
I woke up late at night and saw the falling snow.
In the middle of the night, the weather had changed. Snow began to fall. Large flakes hovered and floated in front of the streetlights as they fell, and soon the ground was coated.
Normally, I would be in Mexico by now. But with my book coming out, we stayed a bit longer. And now I’m glad we did, because two nights ago, my Uncle Andy died. He was 94.
Yesterday, I went with my mother and father, my aunt, my sister and four cousins to meet with the funeral director. He was surprised. He had to scout up more chairs. That’s when we told him my Uncle Les would also be joining us by phone.
This winter was a tough season for Andy.
First, he had to move from the family farmhouse, where he spent the last 77 years of his life, to an assisted living apartment. Andy did not want to move. He wanted to stay at the farm. He wanted to die at the farm. He consented to leaving only after his wife, Bea, who will soon turn 94 herself, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Andy always thought he would die before Bea. But now it was looking as if Bea would go before him — something he never imagined — and they both had to leave the old farmhouse to move into this new, small space. Bea was released from the hospital, and my cousins decorated the new apartment with furniture and pictures from the farmhouse to make them feel at home. Andy complained more or less nonstop about the changes. And he joked. Andy always told jokes, even when he was grumpy.
But neither Andy nor Bea spent much time in that little apartment.
Bea quickly grew worse. She had some small strokes, and she became confused. She started wandering the hallways, and the folks at the home said she’d need to move downstairs to memory care. This meant Andy would also move into a new apartment just a few doors down from Bea.
“I have to move again?” he asked, astonished. He had still not fully settled into the new apartment.
My mother explained that he did so he could be close to Bea.
“But I like this place!” Andy said. This was news to everyone.
Plans were made to move him the next day, but that night, he took a bad fall. He was taken to the hospital. He had broken two vertebrae in his neck. They didn’t recommend surgery at 94. In the middle of the night, he died in his sleep.
“I don’t think he wanted to go through all that,” my mom said. “Not without Bea.”
“He ended up dying first, like he thought he would,” I said.
So yesterday, we had a mini family reunion in the funeral director’s office, then my mother and her sister and a cousin went to tell Bea that her husband had died. My mother said she thought Bea understood — at least for a moment.
“How old was he?” Bea asked. Then she asked about the weather. Then she asked again.
I was thinking about all of this, watching the snow fall in the middle of the night. Sometimes, when I’m in Mexico, I miss the changing of the seasons. This year, I am here as witness. There’s nothing I can do, nothing I can change. But somehow being here to observe the change is good. It makes the changes real. And it reminds me of how very short the days are.
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