Time and an Empty Chair

"Good morning, Penelope. Such a good kitty," Ann baby-talked her aging tabby cat. Ann was up too early as always and glad for the furry company. Her phone hadn't gone off yet - she'd even beaten the alarm this morning. A moment later the screen lit up and the alarm rang out.

"Breakfast" the screen read. But it wasn't for her breakfast. Five in the morning was not her idea of a good time to eat. She needed to take that alarm and a dozen others off her phone - she wasn't ready for that. Already the reality of her husband Alan's death was manifesting in little ways, and she was in no rush to hurry the process.

"Let's get you all fed," she told the cat, who was cuddled across one side of her chest and shoulder. Already the other cats were gathering in the kitchen, meowing for their meal. Ann had done this to herself, training her 5 felines for a 5am breakfast. She hadn't meant to but had fallen into the habit of feeding the animals after feeding her husband. Feeding. Not quite the word for injecting liquid directly into someone's gut through a tube. Now she looked at the corner where his favorite chair sat empty. For two weeks the chair had been replaced with a hospital bed where her husband lay dying. Only 24 hours after his death and already she had insisted her grown children help turn the living room back into a space for gathering instead of a hospice room. She needed space for people to sit for the wake that would proceed his funeral in just 3 days' time. There hadn't been time to waste.

But after the funeral and cremation were arranged, the time-sensitive matters dealt with, her family had given her what she asked for: time alone. Even the son and family who had just moved in with her found another place to take themselves so that Ann could have some stillness. Her cats and tank of hungry fish were less accommodating, and she began opening cans of wet cat food, Penelope still on her shoulder.

It was strange, not being engulfed in Alan's needs. Her mind wandered while she prepared the bowls and thwarted impatient cats off the kitchen counter. For 6 months her world had revolved around pulling him through one health crisis after another. Just before Christmas, she had rushed him to the hospital after a stroke left him unable to speak. From that moment until the moment yesterday morning when she found him forever asleep in his bed, she had lived for Alan, in hospital visitor rooms and rehabilitation centers, bouncing from one misdiagnosis to another. Her back still ached from the time spent sleeping on chairs and small couches.

A fat, orange tabby lightly pawed at her shins. She was standing with the food in hand, lost in thought.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry," she told the cats. She began placing the bowls of food on the floor. Ann and her husband's last fight had been about the number of pets. He was irrational, angry that the animals meant more to her than he did or some nonsense. This and a million other instances should have been a red flag that something was wrong, but she'd blamed his drinking and moved on. Now she was left with her pets and a hole in her life that she feared could never be filled. She knew that wasn't true. She knew time would heal and the family they'd made together would fill that void.

This wasn't her first time being widowed. Just 7 years prior, her second husband had died in a car wreck, dead and gone before any of his family even knew he was missing. She had learned much about grief since then. Grief obeyed no one's rules, no schedule.

She watched her furry ones eat. It was only minutes before Penelope was back on her shoulder. Even the cat was traumatized by this ordeal, barely willing to let Ann out of site for more than a few minutes after being left in the care of Ann's children for so many months.

Ann made her way to the fish tank and dumped flakes of smelly fish food into the water. Penelope watched the fish with interest for a few minutes, then resumed her position. Ann watched the fish and thought about what was to come. There was time to think ahead now. What would she do now that she wasn't running hospice care in her living room? She had planned for her Alan's death to take longer. Two weeks was more than enough time to watch someone suffer but only a week before that, they had such high hopes of him coming home to recover. Her son's family moved in with her so that her son and his wife could help with the process. Was that only 3 weeks ago? And then the results of an MRI changed everything. The brain tumor that had been hiding inside him since before that first stroke 6 months earlier was inoperable. Metastasized. It was a dirty word that meant the tumor had already spread to other places. It probably spent a year or more growing inside him. His tantrums, his paranoia and short temper, all these were little signs that something was wrong for months before the stroke. They had no idea what they were up against until just a few short weeks before his death.

Ann walked to the living room and sat down in what had been her husband's chair. There were still boxes everywhere of tubes and syringes, various medical supplies the hospital hadn't picked up yet. Someone would come to collect them; she wasn't concerned with packing up these bits of memories right now. She tried closing her eyes but each time she did she found herself dreaming of ambulance rides, therapy sessions, times when no one was sure what was holding him to this world, and times when he seemed likely to recover. Less than a month ago he was starting to talk again, able to walk short distances. It was odd, how death toyed with time. She stood up again to pace around, nudging a box of bottled something or other aside as she went.

There was also the guilt. She had allowed her husband to be brought back from the edge of death continuously. He wouldn't have wanted that. But to lose him without knowing what was wrong felt wrong. She had erred on the side of life wherever possible.

"It's his own fault for not getting a DNR signed like I told him to. Stubborn man," she told Penelope. "I couldn't just let him die with so many things we didn't know." She paced through the living room. It was true, he would have wanted to be allowed to die much sooner, she had made him suffer in so many ways. But to have that time with him when he did start to recover - to have the time to finally find out what was wrong and to say goodbye. Maybe she hadn't done the right thing by him but for her and her family's sake, she was glad she hadn't let him go, even if she lived with the guilt forever.

She stepped on a rattle. All at once she was on her knees and Penelope was fleeing the sudden descent. The tears came hard and fast and she sobbed out loud, heaved with the force of her grief. This was her first real cry since they took his body away - she had known it was coming. All the time they'd been given to accept his diagnosis, to say goodbye, it didn't compare to the time lost and the long list of 'nevers' she and her family had to face.

She picked up the rattle. Ann's daughter had brought her 3-month-old granddaughter to see him. The baby girl would never remember meeting him, never know that he held her in the crook of one arm in his death bed, unable to speak but smiling with his eyes. He'd never meet their unborn grandson, though they tried to explain to him that their daughter in law was pregnant, putting his hand on her belly until he made something like a nod. He'd never see their 8-year-old granddaughter grow into a young woman. She had said goodbye to his body the day before with more grace than her age ought to allow and now she grieved her Papa. He'd never see any of their children marry, with two engagements already in the making. They'd never grow old together watching their family change and grow. He'd never finish replacing the upstairs plumbing, now that was just petty of her, wasn't it? The thought made her sob harder. It was petty to be mad about that stupid leaky toilet and that was okay. She got to be angry and petty and whatever else she felt. There was time now, time to feel things she had stuffed down for months, time to feel things she couldn't yet anticipate. She was done apologizing for emotions, not after losing two husbands in less than a decade. She could take her time to heal this time, and help their children and grandchildren do the same.

Penelope came back to her side with a purr and a nuzzle.

"We have time now, don't we Penny?". She wiped her tears on her shirt sleeve and picked up her cat. "We have all the time in the world."