Home

for Jerry Thaman 

1.

I said good-bye to him on Friday night 

and learned on Sunday afternoon 

he had lost consciousness.  

Such was drug induced but the only 

alternative to intensifying pain. 

I gave him a lucid week or more 

when I grasped his hand that night, 

looked into his eyes, 

and told him I loved him

and that there was much love present

to help in whatever happened next -- 

that lots of people were sending energy

for whatever was needed. 

His grip and his eyes showed something 

that seemed like understanding.

2. 

I walked out into that warm Florida night

and just stood by the rental car in the dark, 

not wanting to get in --

not wanting this next part --

my going away from him for what would inevitably be 

the last time on this plane of existence -- to begin. 

Next time I see him, I thought, 

he’ll be in an urn.  I cringed, 

but knew that it was true.  

I turned around in the palpable darkness, 

facing the porch-lit house 

to consider what was inside: 

a dying fifty year old man

with all three natural brothers at his side, 

or at least in the room.  A sister.  A sister-in-law.  A niece.  

The hospice nurse that everybody likes so much. 

And a wife, exhausted, crashing while the others

hold vigil before her shift, motivated by love, 

begins again. 

3.

I don’t know much about death. 

I understand hospice practitioners refer

to the process of dying as a transition: 

a gradual easing from the world of the living 

into a place of unconsciousness where the body 

can let go of the life spirit, freeing it from matter

to become part of whatever it is that happens next.  

I only hope that when he began moving in that direction 

it felt at least as good as home. 

Tom Schaefer

23 September 2013

prior & post Jerry’s leaving