December 28, 2015

For one more incredible year -- the "horrors" are over. Every December my brain and imagination relive the horrors of 2006  --- from the very beginning of the end, to the end, past the end, and through the anniversary of She's death through her birthday -- December 27th.

I no longer question it -- I cannot avoid it -- I just try to live through it!  Every year since 2004 -- from December 1st through the 27th I relive and feel again the horrible injustice of She's death.  I question again the "god" that allowed it, and the awful disease that caused it. I see again the bathroom fall that caused her head to split open, the awful ambulance ride to the hospital, the staying over night -- night after night -- until finally hospice came; and we left the hospital for Room 22 of Hospice Savannah. The 66 days that followed were actually, in the strangest of ways, the happiest Sheila and I were ever to have.  She depended on me and I on her.  We shared the most intimate of thoughts, the most private of dreams. We cried together and prayed together. And to this moment --- this very moment -- I wish we had died together.

There is a brick in the courtyard of Hospice Savannah dedicated to She -- from me (with Linda's help). She died on the morning of December 6th, 2006 in Room 4 of Hospice Savannah. She's Mom Millie and I were both there -- as was She's cousin Carol, the self-appointed representative of Jesus (and boutique missionary to Romanian prostitutes). It was the worst of times. I laughed at She's last breadth-- because I was truly, truly happy that her suffering had ended -- and she got to go to the heaven that she wished for, that she deserved.