By late summer, when the hospice nurse switched Don over to liquid morphine, his wife and kids had almost stopped tiptoeing and holding their breath. Don had always been a mean drunk and they weren’t ready to forgive and release him like the social worker said. Occasionally, as the flesh dropped away from his bones, he acted ready to bring up the subject. But by the time he had marshaled his courage the room would have emptied, everyone suddenly busy with household chores and whatnot.
The day he died was like every other day of the previous nine months except that he barely woke at all. Charlene washed his face and hands and wrestled him into a clean gown. Life went on around him. By midafternoon, he was breathing deeper, intermittently opening his eyes and staring into space. Charlene slipped the hospice pamphlet from between the pages of a romance novel and read the signs of impending death. She called the nurse.
The nurse arrived to find Don stark naked and raving out in the yard, Charlene pleading with him to come back inside, honey, come back inside. He was swinging at Charlene and screaming, wild eyed and sweating. The nurse grabbed her cell phone and dialed the pharmacist, all the while chasing Don around the yard. She lacked history with his fists, and so was willing to get close—it was her job. In twenty minutes, she had accomplished the following: Don was seated on the porch, his lap was covered by a blue hospital gown, and he was drinking a little water. Charlene sat in the kitchen and smoked a third cigarette.
When the pharmacist arrived with a syringe full of the most sedating medicine on his shelf, Don sprang to life again. It took all three sons and the pharmacist to hold him down while the nurse jabbed the syringe into his wasted thigh. In a few minutes, the same group carried Don—now a sweaty, sobbing, angry mess of regrets and confusion—into the house. Within thirty minutes, the hospice nurse had him bathed and settled into bed. Soon he was asleep. With nothing more to do, and offers of additional help—volunteers, the chaplain, social work—politely declined, the nurse left.
The family, exhausted by the afternoon and skilled in the practice of avoidance sat silently in his room while he drew his last, gasping breath. They reported to family and friends that he died at peace and that the hospice nurse was an angel.
Traversing the Midlife Minefield 