DOORS CLOSING

         Glory, glory, the mower is working again. Rather than plodding forward at one speed, no matter which number the shift lever is on, it now has four speeds. This miracle was rendered by Margaret, my part-time employee who came upon me converting the mower to the brush cutter. While I was underneath putting on a belt, I asked her to manipulate the shift handle so that I could see if the cable worked.

         Seeing nothing, I complained about it and she could not resist putting the machine on the grass and turning it on its side. Margaret is one of those people who are fascinated with how things work. She is Ms. Science of ancient TV; I am Jimmy, punctuating her work with asides like "Gosh, Ms. Science, is that how it's done?" Great things get done this way!

         Of course, we also set off a cataclysmic shift in the tectonic plates of the engine's oil level, so that when I wanted to try it out I found it deader than my friend the groundhog, who was run over last week. The air filter was full of oil, which took some cleaning, but eventually it started, emitting great clouds of white smoke. Within a few minutes I was taking down the waist high grass, weeds, plants and chasing a fawn which had bedded down for a nap in the field.

         Margaret tried to make me feel good by telling me I should come and fix her tractor. She does not understand. I do not do tractors. I mow lawns to impress the Saturday visitor, my potential new business associate. The visit goes well. We work, joke, laugh and enjoy the look of the grass. The house is filled with mirth again. It is nice.

         She leaves and my routine begins anew. Drive to the hospital at nine in the morning and seven in the evening to see my wife. Her doctor has told me she will die, but when we do not know. She can not produce enough oxygen for her body. She could exist in a facility where she would wear a mask most of the time, but she does not want to live this way.

         She is apathetic. When they give her a mask, she takes it off. She cannot hear with it on. They give up, replace it with a cannula, which keeps her oxygen level sufficiently high to exist when she is not active. The dietician cannot get her to list the meals she wants. I try to be there to help in that decision, selecting simple things she might enjoy.

         Tonight she is more agitated than normal. Tomorrow she is to go back to the assisted living facility, but her oxygen level has dropped radically and the hated mask is back. She is not to be intubated again, having just gone through it last week with little result. She is very delusional, pointing to objects that may or may not be there, and taking the mask off. I grow angry, tell her in a loud and firm voice to keep the mask on.

         As I go to leave, she brings me back again and again, motioning and telling me something bothers her, but vaguely pointing to the sink, the waste basket and the window. I ask if she wants water, but this is not it. I tell her that I want to see her there in the morning and to keep the mask on her face. I want to sing her a song she loves, but she cannot hear over the rush of oxygen. Not being able to give this atonement for being angry, I leave.

         At home I am tired and fall asleep quickly, only to hear the phone. I find it in the dark. “Mr. Lidle, this is Kim at the hospital. I have some bad news for you.” Morgan has died, apparently of respiratory failure. She says she checked her when she came on at eleven and later several times, hearing Morgan talking to herself. The last time it was quiet and the mask was off.

         I call her brother in Massachusetts and then, putting the dog in the back of the car, make the twenty-five mile trip one last time. It is foggy. I realize I do not have enough gas, but a station is open. When we get there, even the dog is quiet. I meet Kim who takes me to the room. I am reassured the death was relatively painless, and from her face I see no sign of suffering. I plant a kiss with my hand on her forehead and cheeks, but do not stay long.

         Her death comes five days and twelve years after the accident that took our daughter. It comes three months before our twenty-seventh anniversary. It comes seventeen years after she found old bricks and built a patio in front of our house. She may not have been Ms. Science, but she was Ms. Fixit. The kitchen drawer she suggested I use putty to fix still holds together after all my feeble attempts to mend it failed.

         I arrive home, send out some emails and leave a message on a beeper. I explain to the animals what has happened, look around me at the task in front of me, and go back to bed, but sleep does not come. I get up and try to fashion what I know best by booting up.

         Doors are closing, doors are opening. I began to write as her illness came on last summer. The writing has earned me new and dear friends. The physical Morgan is behind the door that has closed, but the gift she has left will keep opening doors. That is corny, that is trite, but glory, glory, it is true.

Valatie June 14, 2001