The last month: A husband's final days

Three days before he died, a visiting friend asked him how he was feeling. He'd barely talked for days, but, in a last act of kindness that still makes me cry, he said in a startlingly strong voice, "I feel very well cared for." The next day, I felt my own chest tighten as I listened to him breathe, raspy and uneven, his mouth agape. And then, on March 2, 2010, I watched his breathing stop. The death itself was almost imperceptible, so stealthy that it was hard to believe it had happened until I felt Jeff's skin cooling.

In one final surprise, I watched the morticians zip my husband inside a body bag and load him into a dark SUV.

I wasn't sorry I had chosen to care for Jeff at home. Our sons could spend more time with him there and it was a less somber, less sterile setting than a hospital or inpatient hospice. His care was more loving, if less competent. This was the fulfillment of my marriage vows, a final gift to a man who had been a steadfast, loving partner and wonderful father.

Still, I wondered how I could have known so little about what the end would be like when there had been so much warning. The hospice chaplain gave me information about signs of death, but the process was well under way by then. I asked the aides to teach me tricks of the trade, and they did, but it seemed I was always behind the curve.

Like many of us, I had been lucky enough to have encountered very little death in my life. I knew people whose parents had died, but people don't talk about the nitty-gritty of death, like how it feels to give raspberry-flavored morphine when you know you're choosing between pain control and length of life. I didn't want to hurt Jeff's feelings by reading books on caregiving when he didn't need it; when he did, I didn't have time to read.

I came to wish that I had asked more questions, more insistently, and that the doctors and nurses who worked so hard to keep my husband alive had talked openly - before there was a crisis - about what my role as a caregiver would be like when their work was done.

Contact staff writer Stacey Burling at 215-854-4944 or sburling@phillynews.com.