December 2, 2023
This was one of my husband’s favorite Christmas ornaments. He laughed when he saw it in the Hallmark store, and every year, he would wander past the tree and ask, “Where’s my reindeer ornament?”
Two years ago today, Greg chose hospice, setting again the terms that he carried, that the girls and I had always known.
None of the four of us wavered.
The next day, as the EMTs wheeled Greg into our house and toward the bedroom, toward hospice, toward so much unknown, I stopped them.
“Greg,” I said, “there’s the Christmas tree.”
He turned his head with effort, looked at me quickly, and gave a thumbs up.
Last Saturday, after driving almost nine hours from Alabama, I went out to the shed in the dark, soggy cold, and I grabbed the Christmas tree box. I came inside, got the galvanized tin tree collar from under one of the beds, put the tree base inside it, and snapped the three pieces together.
It was started.
It would be done.
I’ve hung a few ornaments a day all week. I’ve let Alexa play Christmas music. Sandi Patty Katy Perry. Faith Hill. Kenny Chesney. And somewhere along the line, someone sang “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”
What struck me this year about that song–what I heard anew–were the lines, “We’ll conspire . . . to face unafraid/ the plans that we’ve made . . . “
We were unafraid when, still married, we lived apart. We were unafraid when he came home on hospice. And I have to be unafraid now.
These, after all, are the plans that we made.
One thing a long illness does is force conversations that most couples will never have.
One day, during our time living separately, we carpooled home from work. We were sitting at the red light near Dairy Queen, and somehow end-of-life care came up. I can’t remember what Greg asked–something about telling when it was time. I replied, “I always thought I would just look you in the eye and I would know [what you wanted].”
There at that red light, he nodded, satisfied that he was still understood.
Accepting that–where his line was–also meant accepting the things I must now: the placid solitude, the long days, the ever-quiet house.
Two years ago, when it was time to begin to say goodbye, I didn’t see this in the plan that we made. But the girls and I are still unafraid, still walking, just as he would expect us to be.
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