2-25-2025 + 2

Burt just passed and yesterday was odd and aimless although I had things to do and did them.

I miss Burt although saying it out loud is stating the obvious. A redundancy. I miss his aide. I miss the routine of our days. Back to the redundancy: I miss Burt.

I told him I will love him forever. That’s a promise I know I can keep.

He owned my soul as I am now entrusted with his.

To those who remember him as a funny man who was happy to make people laugh, yes, he was. He got joy in laughter.

He was lucky to have laughter. Some mornings, he would say something so funny, he’d crack himself up. And when he laughed at his own jokes, we, his aide and I, would bask in that joy.

Speaking of his aide, he was lucky to have her, too. He loved her and she treated him with tenderness and affection. She was with him in those last moments.

Come to think of it, we were both lucky to have her there.

Day 2 minus Burt is dawning for me.

Time to do more remembering.

So, what now?

I am aimless the day after Burt has left his body and his body has been taken away by the men from the mortuary.

I visit the funeral home to fill out paperwork that will carry him away. Even further. Or carry his body away. I turn spiritual of a sudden. I know his soul, his spirit lingers.

Who he was, that spirit lingers, and I go about gathering all the information it has left in memory.

I do not rely on my memories alone. I turn to the boisterous fan club he has left behind. Burt has a large following.

I get calls or texts or emails that fill me in. His friends, and there are many, share a memory. I get a hug from our mailman who tells me a Burt.

Somewhere pretty late in our journey, probably about the time of his last birthday, Burt said “They’re not my friends. They’re yours.” He was willing to share in their friendship but sure that it belonged only to me.

He didn’t realize that it was he who galvinized my sociability. He spoke to everyone and with the same confidence.

He was welcoming.

7C before she moved away was enthralled by what a confident man he was. A friend called to say how sweet his flirtation had been. I treasured the flirt in Burt. Flirtation came naturally and as part of his generous heart. It was a pleasure to watch him shyly and boldly embrace the world, especially when it was female.

He could be ornery and difficult, or maybe it was just assertive. Dementia takes away so much of your agency that sometimes you just have to put your foot down.

My friends, his friends share the stories of his journey. Some of our friends know him from before but we focus on the past 5 years. Burt had a presence. They tell me of his big personality. My heart warms and heals.

2-25-2025 [to Burt]

My burden's been lifted, or
Lessened. I search instead
For the purpose I've lost or
Misplaced. Caregiving is a
Job or a job description, so
Once it passes you are no
Longer giving care.The work
Is over, finished, the burden
Lifted, and you by definition
No longer occupy that job.
By definition caregiver does
Not define you, it is not who
You are. It doesn't define me.
I am no longer your caregiver
I am bereft of the work that
Love had become. My job, to
Care for you, to take care of
You left my house, our house
When you passed, leaving me
With the caring, the love but
Without you. I seek a purpose
To turn to, knowing there will 
Be none as deep, or intense 
As giving care to my beloved,
Knowing that my love and my
Care survives when caregiving
Passes so that memories hold 
Its place.

Closure, ha!

My post on February 25, 2025 speaks of getting closure being dependent upon the funeral parlor taking possession of Burt’s body. That, in the retrospect of half a night’s sleep, is inaccurate and, well, bullshit.

It closed my day and left me able to go downstairs. I wanted to see the doorman who had not had a chance to visit his goodbyes.

I also decided it was time to dispose of my projects of activity boxes. I had wanted to enrich Burt’s diminishing interests with diversions. He wasn’t having it. I had tried hard.

The activities I thought he might undertake were related to his work. He had loved his jobs on Wall Street so ledgers seemed like they could occupy him; I also made counting boxes which might encourage dexterity and brain stimulation. As I said, he showed no intetest in games of any sort.

Burt’s main activity was talking. In the last months, it was chatting with his imagined posse. They were companions alongside me or his aides. Often, when I went to answer a question he posed, I felt as if I were intruding on his conversation. He was engaged with a hallucinatory crew in or near the light fixture.

That is not to say that he did not welcome an equally intense engagement with us. He loved to talk while we fed him. It was a charming and intimate way for us to interact.

There was connection in those moments. He would slowly chew and wrinkle his brow, then ask a question. In those last three or four months, the questions were hard to decipher. They were earnest and part of our bond with him.

When I say our, I mean a bond with me or his aide. Burt had the best care.

I define good (or best) care by the care or caring behind it. Burt was surrounded by caring.

As to the bullshit about closure, I don’t need closure.

Our relatiobship stands on its own, and needs no final ending.

Of course, his death is an ending but my love and the memories of his love need no finality.

As to the necessity that Burt be taken to the funeral home, that was an ending. As I said it was necessary and not expedited in a timely manner.

As time crept closer to four, the urgency of getting the death certificate so the funeral home could proceed struck me. Time of death had been pronounced as 11:29 a.m. Burt had done his part to be timely.

His doctor would need to sign the OME’s paperwork before cob at 5. We had had a parade of EMTs etc since the WCM-NYP crew had made the pronouncement.

We were with the third shift of cops just waiting for the go ahead  to call for the mortician’s men.

That go ahead was dependent on the ME. It was about 5:30 when he signalled to the policeman in attendance that I could make the call.

Two hours later, two men made the pick up. As the gurney they opened clattered, my young cop companion said «Don’t worry; they’re professionals.« He and I shook hands just after they carried Burt out the door of his apartment. Never to return. Except in my memories of him.

Fond memories.

Eerie

Burt’s body remained in the bed room until after 7:30. The ME when my dear S called him on my behalf was very apologetic. The funeral home sent someone from a NJ parlor because they close at 5pm.

He was at rest but 8 hours was a long hard time for me to wait to get a closure for his passing.

Still, he looked peaceful.

We will celebrate his life in May on our anniversary. It will be 35 years from when we met for me to bid a final adieu.

It’s coming to the end

Or, more accurately, Burt’s last 4 days

Burt’s temperature was 102.1. I gave him some water which he sputtered over, coughing but swallowing it.

I put a cold wet papertowel on his head. It dropped to 99.1. His arms are shaking. His lips are shaking. He opens his eyes and puts his lips on the bottle to drink. His lips tremble. No words or recognition.

I feel I am actively losing him. I apologized to him this morning for every cross word I ever uttered to him. Ever. He may be actively dying. We may need hospice.

Burt had slept all weekend. No food since a few teaspoons on Sat

He opens his eyes but does not complain nor connect. I think this is the end. I wish him an easy passage. He used to love holding hands. He doesn’t squeeze my hand anymore; his aide, our friend, noticed that when she took his hand first.

Hospice was to come this afternoon to evaluate and set up service. His aide was begging Burt to complain or curse her out!

I am prepared but not ready. Or ready but not prepared. Or neither.

I thought I had been losing him little by little as he fell into his own world. Now it feels as if he were truly gone. And that was before he drew his last breath.

Then he was still here, breathing with a faint wheeze or wimper. Not in pain, just air passing laboriously through. I think of him as brave in this last stage. He was often anxious and scared but he always owned those feelings (or in a macho world some would say failings.)

He is showing courage and again I wish him a safe and easy passage.

His difficult breathing has brought my inner spiritualism to the fore. I repeatedly tell him I love him as if each breath were speaking a new truth to me.

I told him I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye. Tears well as I write that.

Perhaps the truth is that I never wanted or intended to say goodbye. I have given him my apologies for a sharp tongue but I know he knew I had a soft heart.

That heart is breaking now as he slips into a skeletal form from days of fasting. His heart and soul seem absorbed in the process of inhaling and exhaling.

He takes each breath with a fierce concentration like it is all he can think of and can not be distracted.

I will not sit vigil over him but my thoughts will be at his bedside. I will go about doing my usual exercises, at the gym, on the street. I do want to be with him at the end. As his world unwinds, and the immense loss of him tears at me, I want to be able to recall his last moments as minutely as I can recall some of his best.

I honor the full life of this man, the one I love so wholeheartedly. The man I know is the love of my life. And lucky I am at that.

I wrote to those his life had touched: I wanted to let you know. We’re going on hospice this week. Another sharp decline over the weekend. All sleep no eat or drink. He seems comfortable but is not responsive on any level. I am not ready. I am not prepared. I knew it would happen  but….

And then on the morning of Tuesday, February 25th, he took his last breath.

The EMTs pronounced at 11:29 a.m. Many long hours later, his wonderful aide and I are still waiting for the last batch of officials to give us the death certificate.

Out of the past

Memories are a way of reliving the past. Memories are also a way to bring good feelings back.

I spend more time with that past now. In my present, I also spend time living a heavy sorrow.

The Gates opened in the Park on 2/12 again this year. We were there in 2002, I think.

From time to time, events and occasions trigger both memory and sorrow. We did this thing, checking out The Gates in their first iteration years ago. My smile at the poster today was wry, my eyes watering.

There is a trick I have taught myself recently to reframe my grief and sadness.

It wasn’t the first time I had noticed the announcement for a The Gates exhibit. This time I decided it would be helpful to look for that picture of us; to reframe my shock at the return of the art in the park as a good memory.

Here it is. It had been one ofww re r many nice days we’d spent.

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