The Last Day at Home

His last day at home he had his eyes opened some of the time. He didn’t speak. I was there all day. Peggy came. And Rob.
I remember sitting on the edge of his bed, crying.
He just stared at me.
He lay there, La Boheme blasting Rudolpho’s aria about Mimi’s cold little hand.
I played every record album he loved.
La Traviata
Faust
Carmen
Il Trovotore
Aida
Madama Butterfly
I played Mary Poppins and High Button Shoes.
I wanted him to hear every piece of music he loved.
And I wanted him to hear it in our mother’s den.
That den where so many parties had taken place.
Where those records had been played over and over
Where he and I never put them away
Where toasts were made to ring in the new year, on birthdays, graduations, opening nights and closing nights, and where he now lay in his hospital bed.

I rolled his bed out onto the porch by the pool in the yard.
Expressionless, he stared.
Could he think? I wondered.
Did he keep his eyes open that day because he wanted to talk?
Weren’t we talking?
The music – our eyes – my tears?
I poured the music into him as my tears poured out of me.
His last day at home.

Mom sat by him,
a mother losing a second son. I didn’t know how she endured it.
I stepped away briefly from the bed
When I came back he was still staring and Mom was still crying.
And then the most amazing thing happened.
He looked at Mom who was looking away because she couldn’t stand it any more
And I was staring at the two of them, and I saw
his lips, without a sound, slowly mouth a single syllable –
“Mom.”

I believe it was his last word.

I saw it. She did not.
Certain words are unmistakable.
The word “mom” silently spoken is very clear. The lips close gently
Open for a split second to form the vowel and close again.
The gentleness of the moment
Delicate
This word
This moment
This silence
Sang out over the aria being played.
In that moment
My brother lived.
And I watched my mother saying goodbye to her son -
Her son whose last word, I believe,
Was “Mom”.

The ambulance arrived about three o'clock in the afternoon to pick him up.
As Bob was wheeled out of our mother’s house, his favorite opera singer, Jussi Bjorling blasted in the background.
(Aria - A Sister's Journey With AIDS continued in next post - The Hospice)