it. She holds on to the rocker’s arms as she prays. She prays first for each person under her care who has already died and then she prays for those who are dying tonight and those who will die tomorrow or next Friday. She prays during these precious moments only for her people—“clients,” some nurses call them, but she calls them “her people.” She does not pray for her family—not her four daughters or her husband or her sisters. Those prayers are for the morning or for the drives to see her people or for every other moment of the day when she is not in her life of dying.
The phone rings and there is a scramble downstairs that Marie hears and it makes her laugh out loud just a little to think how well her family knows her and understands this space that she has to protect to keep on going, to tell herself, “Yes, I’m alive and I can do it again.”
A tap at the door startles her because it has been so long since there was an emergency at this hour. So long since someone called and needed her now, just like that, during this time,
her
time.
“Mom, I’m sorry,” whispers Sarah from behind the door. “She says she needs to talk to you right away.”
“That’s okay, honey,” Marie whispers back, not wanting to break the spell of her own prayer service with a loud voice. “Who is it?”
Sarah is a good girl. She is really a young woman who is only months away from handing over the reins of this very important job to her younger sister when she graduates from high school. But for now, maybe for the last time, she is the one who whispers first one name and then another from the other side of the door. Sarah is the one who will stop her mother’s beating heart with the names of two women. Sarah, who will eventually go on to become a doctor and who will be remarkable not only for her healing powers but for remembering the kindness and grace that she witnessed every single day in the actions and life and breath of her own mother, Marie Kondronsky, the hospice nurse from Sonoma County.
“Mom, she said her name is Katherine Givins and that she needed to talk with you about a funeral for Annie Freeman.”
Marie cannot move for one, two and then five seconds. The weight of Annie Freeman’s hands on her arm is still so fresh in her mind that she cannot think to speak to her daughter who is waiting to be dismissed, to know for certain that her mother is going to know what to do next.
“Mom?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. I’ll tell you about it later. Can you hang up down there?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Katherine Givins and Marie Kondronsky spoke on the phone often during Annie’s illness. They met twice during Katherine’s visits but they have never gotten past the graceful discussion of the medical world. They have discussed cancer and medication and efforts to comfort the dying, but they have not balanced over the edge very far to explore the potential possibilities of common denominators. Life beyond dying has danced around them even as they have embraced and cried together and then turned to get on with it.
This is the launch of something new. This is where those “How are you?”s move quickly to the heart of the call.
“How are you, Marie?”
“Fine, Katherine.”
Then Katherine Givins begins her tale of the traveling funeral while Marie rocks in her chair and imagines, in between sentences, that she is gliding across the tops of the trees and that she will never fall and nothing can stop her from floating as if that is all there is to do. Float and be in the now with the living. That is all. Just that.
“Did you know about this?” Katherine asks her. “The traveling funeral?”
Marie does not answer Katherine’s question. Instead, she tells her a story. She tells Katherine about how she falls in love with every single patient that she cares for and how her heart breaks every single time one of them dies and that they all die.
They all die.
Marie did not know. She did not
The phone rings and there is a scramble downstairs that Marie hears and it makes her laugh out loud just a little to think how well her family knows her and understands this space that she has to protect to keep on going, to tell herself, “Yes, I’m alive and I can do it again.”
A tap at the door startles her because it has been so long since there was an emergency at this hour. So long since someone called and needed her now, just like that, during this time,
her
time.
“Mom, I’m sorry,” whispers Sarah from behind the door. “She says she needs to talk to you right away.”
“That’s okay, honey,” Marie whispers back, not wanting to break the spell of her own prayer service with a loud voice. “Who is it?”
Sarah is a good girl. She is really a young woman who is only months away from handing over the reins of this very important job to her younger sister when she graduates from high school. But for now, maybe for the last time, she is the one who whispers first one name and then another from the other side of the door. Sarah is the one who will stop her mother’s beating heart with the names of two women. Sarah, who will eventually go on to become a doctor and who will be remarkable not only for her healing powers but for remembering the kindness and grace that she witnessed every single day in the actions and life and breath of her own mother, Marie Kondronsky, the hospice nurse from Sonoma County.
“Mom, she said her name is Katherine Givins and that she needed to talk with you about a funeral for Annie Freeman.”
Marie cannot move for one, two and then five seconds. The weight of Annie Freeman’s hands on her arm is still so fresh in her mind that she cannot think to speak to her daughter who is waiting to be dismissed, to know for certain that her mother is going to know what to do next.
“Mom?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. I’ll tell you about it later. Can you hang up down there?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Katherine Givins and Marie Kondronsky spoke on the phone often during Annie’s illness. They met twice during Katherine’s visits but they have never gotten past the graceful discussion of the medical world. They have discussed cancer and medication and efforts to comfort the dying, but they have not balanced over the edge very far to explore the potential possibilities of common denominators. Life beyond dying has danced around them even as they have embraced and cried together and then turned to get on with it.
This is the launch of something new. This is where those “How are you?”s move quickly to the heart of the call.
“How are you, Marie?”
“Fine, Katherine.”
Then Katherine Givins begins her tale of the traveling funeral while Marie rocks in her chair and imagines, in between sentences, that she is gliding across the tops of the trees and that she will never fall and nothing can stop her from floating as if that is all there is to do. Float and be in the now with the living. That is all. Just that.
“Did you know about this?” Katherine asks her. “The traveling funeral?”
Marie does not answer Katherine’s question. Instead, she tells her a story. She tells Katherine about how she falls in love with every single patient that she cares for and how her heart breaks every single time one of them dies and that they all die.
They all die.
Marie did not know. She did not
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