The Parts of an Extra-Large Burial
The long hard journey with Dave’s multiple illnesses ended with his peaceful death in bed, in our bedroom, in the soft light of a bedside lamp, with the rush of early-April winds outside. My nearby relatives had come to say a brief goodbye to Dave’s body — already we were learning the reality of the difference between the person and what remains after death. Dave’s face, sagging and still, no longer provided his bright and curious responsiveness, and saying goodbye to the body would not be as hard as I’d feared.
The hospice nurse suggested that I wait a bit before calling the funeral home, since after that call, Dave’s body would leave our home and there’d be no way to slow that process down. I agreed, bearing in mind what my friend and fellow author Reeve Lindbergh wrote about the experience of death in her family. And I asked the nurse to take away the paper bag of powerful medications — opioids and anti-anxiety drugs — that had rested in my dresser drawer, in case Dave needed them.
“I can’t take those,” she said, “only the morphine from the pump. You need to turn them in at one of the drug boxes, like the one at the police station.”
She took the devices she’d removed — the morphine pump, the catheter, some small items — and headed out into the cold dark night.
