Home-going Anniversary Eve

Otherwise known at 364 days after G died.

His favorite way to refer to someone who loved Jesus dying and going to be with him was "homegoing". I try to use that sometimes but have also learned to just say "died". It's a harsh word and a harsh reality. Home-going is what G experienced. He went home to be with his Savior. To be at rest, at peace. To be whole and truly well.

But death is what we experienced. The severing. The finality. Those horrible hours of chaos and fear and pain and panic and confusion that led to a final breath, a final heart beat. A final choked out "I love you" - his final words. I hate death. I hate the brokenness of this world. Things being not as they are meant to be. Trauma, and terrible memories, and watching a loved one suffer and diminish and ultimately die.

So I wasn't sure how today was going to go. 364 days ago was a hard day. A really, really hard day. G had been in so much pain. Such incomprehensible pain and exhaustion and nausea and inability to eat. So cold, so tired yet so unable to rest. The day before had been just awful but we had finally gotten some medicine.

The palliative care nurse came over Friday morning (was it 10am? 11am?) because she was worried about G and wanted to get a in-person look at him before the weekend. He was upstairs in the bathroom when she arrived and it took a while for him to come downstairs. Everything to a while. When he got down and into his chair and covered by his blanket, she noted that he seemed shaky and looked kind of gray. I remember her saying, "You don't look good" and he said, "I don't feel good". She examined him and I wish I could remember the details. What I do remember is that she didn't find anything of the things she was really concerned about (like appendicitis). Nothing that made the alarm bells go off in her head. And G really wanted to stay out of the hospital. It was getting close to Christmas (1 week away) and she knew that if G went to the ER, he would be in the hospital through Christmas. So she ordered some more medicine, encouraged us to get some potassium in him (my solution was banana bread) as well as some other nutrients that were in PowerAde (which I went to CVS to pick up after she left) and to go to the ER if there were any changes over the weekend. She would call us on Monday to check in.

My friend K stopped by as I was walking back from CVS with groceries she had picked up for us from Trader Joes. I remember there were some special groceries for Christmas in the bag but I can't remember what. There were a bunch of containers of cottage cheese because Greg had been asking for it. She also surprised us with a chocolate-orange which Greg was so excited about when he saw it because he loved those at Christmastime (but he never got to eat it).

I can't remember the rest of the day except that I made banana bread and strawberry sauce (applesauce pureed with frozen strawberries) for dinner and G loved it but could only eat a little. He loved my banana bread. I usually tried to make a healthy version but I just wanted him to be able to eat and get that potassium in so I just focused on making it yummy. Sometimes I wonder just how much weight he had lost. He had so much excess fluid on him. Was it 20lbs of fluid? 30lbs? I wish he had known because he was always so discouraged by his weights and so much of it was just the stupid fluid that his body couldn't get rid of.

That evening UT came over. G was feeling better from the medications and was able to play with P (Ninjago spinjitu slammers) at the table for an hour. It was such a special moment. UT left early and we did "thankfulls and Bible story" and I remember that G was laying on the couch and able to read from our devotional book - which he hadn't been able to do all week because his arms had been too sore to hold up the book. After P went to bed we went to bed - or maybe we even went upstairs with P. G was so exhausted those days. So extremely exhausted.

That's what I remember.

Today I spent some time watching old MarcoPolo videos from last year at this time. I'm up to Dec. 9th on the videos between me and UN and UT. Here's what I have been reminded of: G was suffering so badly. It was too much. He was so exhausted from fighting for life, so exhausted from everything being so hard, so weary of living this way. We were trying to wrap our minds around what was happening with very little information from doctors. We didn't know how to process what we were picking up on - that he was not going to survive. But we thought he had 1 year - at least 6 months for sure. We were totally unprepared for him to die on 12/19 but we were starting to realize that he was not going to get better unless he could go through the extreme trial of a re-transplant. But he didn't even want to go back to the hospital. He just wanted to be home. He was starting to weigh quality of life and quantity of life. I was trying to empower him to make the decisions for himself and trying to keep anyone from guilting or pressuring him. It was all so hard. So very, very hard.

And the next day he died. He was free and we were thrust into this terrible journey of grief. 364 days later, by God's grace alone, I am standing. I am starting to see some hope. Starting to experience a taste of peace amid the pain. Starting to accept that he died. That there was no other outcome that could happen. That his journey was over. His race was won. His faith was made sight. God's purposes for his life were complete. And I am still here. My race is not over. My journey lies before me. My faith is still faith and God's purposes are still a mystery. But he left me here to LIVE. So I need to live. I need to grieve. And I will always love and remember G. But I need to find a way to live in this reality - in this journey that God has me on. And I realize I've been learning it - one step at a time, one day at a time, for 364 days and counting. God has held me every step of the way and I know he will no matter what comes.