Last Holy Week

Warning: This is really sad.


Holy Monday
I'm in Houston, where I've been since January thanks to some nitpicking in my department. My husband is still back in Pennsylvania. Thank heavens our long-distance marriage is almost over! We've only been married 8 months, and spending the last three 1500 miles apart has gotten real old.

It's going to be a busy week. I have a conference to fly to on Wednesday, then Friday I'll fly from there back to Pennsylvania. Then Saturday at the Easter Vigil I'll join the Church! My day is consumed with packing, putting together the talk I'm going to give at the conference, and reading more about the Catholic Church. I want to be completely confident in my answer when they ask if I accept everything the Church teaches!


Holy Tuesday
I help collect papers at the end of the class I'm TAing. Ugh, I have to grade these before I leave.

My phone rings, and it's my husband. What a pleasant surprise! But the moment I hear his voice, I know it's not so pleasant. He missed a call from his mother this morning, and when he called back, EMS answered. His mother was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. She's had a severe heart attack. My father-in-law is out of town on business and my husband is alone at the hospital with his unconscious mother.

My husband is alone. At the most terrifying time of his life.

I manage to make it through talking with him and get my own mother on the phone before bursting into tears.

My friend is waiting for me when I get done. She takes the papers to grade and sends me to the computer to book a flight. Of course US Airways won't change my flight. I swear never to fly them again and call Southwest. Less than three hours later, I'm in the air.

My husband picks me up and we go straight to the hospital. His father makes it back. His older brother arrives on a train from DC. His younger brother comes in on a flight from Wisconsin. Details start to emerge. My husband ate supper with her the night before, and she was fine. This is completely unexpected, for a 57 year old woman with no history of heart problems who is in good shape. Everyone is in shock.


Holy Wednesday
She should regain consciousness today.

She doesn't.

It didn't seem possible, but things are getting scarier.


Maundy Thursday and Good Friday
The days have started to blur together. We don't remember if we slept at the hospital or home the night before. Other friends and family have started to flood the hospital. She would hate for everyone to see her like this, but the desperation increases by the hour. Everyone tries to awake her from her coma - touching, talking, yelling, praying. Any movement is cause for hope. But the nurses sadly inform us that each flutter is involuntary.

The guys focus on the medical aspects - where exactly in her heart, how long was blood flow to the brain blocked, numbers and arteries and words that mean nothing to me. I pray. We all pray.

The tears come and go, sometimes silently and sometimes in heavy bursts.

I read the Book of Ruth and promise that I'll be a faithful daughter-in-law and take care of her no matter how immobile she is, if God would only give us that chance. This cannot happen to my husband. My prayers become less and less eloquent, until they are nothing but a panicked and desperate "Please please please please please."

Watching my husband's family suffer through this is painful. My father-in-law insists that we will not let this tear apart the family - we will stay strong together through this. We cling to each other, my husband to me, my brother-in-law to his fiancee, my other brother-in-law to his father.


Holy Saturday
I'm entering the Church tonight. My mother-in-law had bought a cross-shaped cake pan to make a cake and celebrate. I bake a cake in it. Ready or not, Easter is tomorrow.

The family leaves two close friends behind at the hospital and comes to the Easter Vigil, and I am touched. I am confirmed and receive my first holy communion. It is not the exciting high I expected. It is simply relief that I can have the strength of the Eucharist to sustain me. The word "bitter-sweet" never rang so true.

We go straight to the hospital afterwards. We talk to some people from Hospice. She'll be moved from the hospital into their care tomorrow.


Easter Sunday
My father-in-law decides that we can wait to move her until the next day. It is Easter, after all.

There is no Easter egg hunt this year.


Easter Monday
Everyone realizes that she won't be leaving the hospital. Last good-byes are said.

Visitors dissipate. I sit at the hospital with my mother-in-law's best friend. We stand guard in the waiting room.

She makes it through the day. My husband's family returns. The pain is too palpable. They say good-bye again. My father-in-law tells her she can go.

We go home, to the house that is so empty without her. We get a call. She has gone.