We'll understand it all by and by

The following post, taken from Stephanie's CarePages site, was written by her husband, Rob.

In a mere three months, Stevie’s cancer, having turned aggressive, made known its outriders to her lungs, and dragged her through a gauntlet of increasingly severe pain and fatigue. But in the end, she died a perfect death at the time of her choosing. How she did this is a mystery, which comforts me.

A hospice doctor told me the nurses and aides say that God chooses the day of death, but the dying person choses the hour. I had asked the doctor if it was safe for me to go home one night shortly before Stevie’s death. I promised her the day we learned she had pancreatic cancer, Jan. 27, 2010, that I would be with her every step of the way. That promise included the final step.

Dr. Edwards told me Stevie might choose otherwise. Imagine that.

“It’s not uncommon that people choose to die when their loved ones are not in the room,” he said. “It seems they want to protect the people they love. We think of it as their final gift.”

Dr. Edwards suggested we talk to Stevie frequently, even though she seemed to be now in a steady unconscious state.

“Tell her what day and what time it is,” he advised. “When you leave, tell her when you’ll return. Let her know your plans for the day. Give her a schedule.”

The day after Christmas, Stevie’s parents, Bill and Evelyn, arrived at hospice around 9:30 a.m. In Stevie’s room, they joined our friends, Mary and Dottie, who had stayed with her through the previous evening and night. Later that morning, Evelyn called me at home. She was distressed that Stevie’s breathing had become labored, and that she was coughing so much. Stevie had progressed to that point we’d been told would be more disturbing to loved ones than to her; but when I was with her a few hours later, she appeared to be comfortable, even though her chest rose and fell heavily.

Travis, Will and I, Stevie’s brother, Matt, with wife Shannon and daughter, Maddie, went to see Stevie around 1 p.m. Our boys each in turn bent close to their mom, touched her and spoke softly.

Soon, all departed except Evelyn, Bill and me. I lay my head against Stevie’s. She had told me on a few occasions that she was worried about how Travis, Will and I would do when she dies. I repeated for Stevie what Travis had said to me. He has a job he loves, which gives him a sense of purpose. He has his Coast Guard friends and shipmates for support. His mom thought, as do I, that he also has a wonderful girlfriend.

“I’m concerned about you and Will,” Travis had said that first night he’d come home. He thought Will wouldn’t have the emotional support at college he’ll need in the coming months. “And you don’t have a job,” he said to me, indicating that I’d be isolated and lacking purpose.

In her spacious, clean, naturally lit hospice room, my lips close to her ear, I said to Stevie, “Will is taking the winter quarter off from school. He and I are going to take care of each other. We’ll get some help from the bereavement counselors at hospice. And then this winter when Dayton is cold and wet and gray, we’ll get your RV out of storage and go south.”

I told her we’d go to the coast of North Carolina, where I lived in my teen years, and visit my life-long friends there. Then we’d head down to Jacksonville, FL, to visit my sister and her family. And then we’d go south along the coast to Cape Canaveral and Indian Harbour Beach where we lived when Travis was born.

“And after that, I think I’ll introduce Will to Key West,” I said. “I’ll even make sure he reads The Old Man and the Sea before we visit Hemingway’s house.”

Bill, Evelyn, Stevie and I visited Key West in the 80s before Travis was born. That trip, whenever it comes up in family conversation, is most remembered because of my highfalutin attitude. We’d been caught outside in a steady drizzle. As we passed a restaurant, Stevie’s dad, ever resourceful, ducked in the kitchen door. He returned and handed out commercial-size, black garbage bags to each of us. He tore a hole in the top of his bag for his head and holes for both arms. He helped Evelyn and Stevie make their garbage-bag ponchos. Such a happy family portrait.

And I am now forever stigmatized as the snob who was too good to wear a garbage bag in Key West.

I told Stevie that our boys and I would grieve her loss terribly, but I assured her we would be okay and go on to live our lives in ways that would be true to her spirit and her love for us.

“You can feel free to let go whenever you’re ready,” I said. “Let your spirit soar.”

I told Bill and Evelyn I was going to the community room to make a few calls and check my email. A man was tuning the piano in the community room, so I found another spot somewhere upstairs. Tina, our aide that day, found me 40 minutes later.

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” she said. “Come with me.” She moved out ahead of me, heading back to the nursing station near Stevie’s room. Gretchen, Stevie’s nurse that day, was waiting for me.

“She passed away at 2:43,” Gretchen said, adding that Stevie simply stopped breathing, then took one final death, and died peacefully.

Her parents were with her when she passed on. Together, we stayed in the room with her body for a while.

“It’s as it should be,” I said to Bill and Evelyn. “You were with her when she came into the world, and you were with her when she left it.”

Too many mysteries of this world arise from its stark cruelty and inhumanity butting up against the belief in a loving God. Other mysteries contradict with their affirmations of life and the human spirit. This tension is why I like the words from a traditional hymn, “We’ll understand it all by and by.”

At some point during our 31 years as husband and wife, I quit complaining that God screwed up the world from the beginning and didn’t seem to be doing much to rectify the situation. Loving Stephanie showed me that notion was kind of lowfalutin. Being loved by Stephanie helped me build a spiritual foundation one brick at a time, which I wasn’t fully aware of until she passed away. Standing upon it, faith in the evidence of things unseen is wholly rational and right. I know her spirit does soar now in that here-and-elsewhere dimension, just as it always did in this heartbreaking, wonder-filled world.