Aunt Cathy was always my favorite - softball and snow cones at the U.P. State Fair, funny faces behind mom’s scolding, and just the right way to listen to my teenage rants when life just wasn’t fair. She was my cheerleader, complete with rah-rah flags, my confidante, and my best grown-up friend. And she had the coolest job ever that kept her traveling all over the world. Every few months she’d send a note and a gift from some far-off place… a salsa skirt from Brazil, edible bugs from Bangkok (ugh!), and an authentic Kashmir baby blanket when my first daughter came along.
When she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 51, Aunt Cath hardly blinked, even though she knew the disease would bring limitations to her professional life. For a couple of years she just kept going. But I worried. Aunt Cath had never married, and I knew she had a long haul ahead. I knew that – eventually – she’d become sick enough that she couldn’t manage on her own. Sick enough that the postcards would end and she’d accept our offer of a place to stay. Sick enough that even a trip to the girls’ soccer match would become too much.
When the time came, my husband and I were determined to help Aunt Cath stay focused on the wonderful life she’d led rather than the inevitable: her pain and our slow loss. We wanted to celebrate the person who had lived such a big, bright and generous life. The person who, despite her limited movement and speech, still insisted on beginning each day the way she always had – with a bold “Look out, world, here comes Cathy!”
We’d heard about Upper Peninsula Hospice from a close family friend whose dad had spent his last weeks at home, mostly comfortable and pain free, surrounded by his family and his best memories. So we arranged a meeting between Aunt Cathy, her doctor, and the hospice nurse, cleaned out the spare bedroom , took a deep breath… and brought Aunt Cathy home.
I’m not sure any of us really grasped what hospice care would come to mean to Aunt Cathy and to every member of our extended family.
From the first, the nurses were our lifesavers, with their cool, assured heads and practical outlook. They told us the signs to look for that might indicate a change in Aunt Cath’s condition. Things her doctors would want to know. They taught us how to manage her medications to control her pain and to keep her alert. My favorite nurse, Annie, spent a whole afternoon teaching us all about catheter care, helping me overcome a lifetime of squeamishness. Every slight twitch from my ever-patient Aunt Cathy, every fumbling attempt to insert the tubing, was met with Annie’s calm assurance – “that’s right, that’s right. Now you’re getting it.” Except I wasn’t. Not even on my fifth attempt when Aunt Cathy finally chimed in with her vintage brand of dry humor: “Not right. Not right! What the dickens are you doing down there?” We all laughed so hard that the tension snapped. Somehow I gained courage and with a smooth movement slid the catheter smoothly into place.
We also had home care aides come in to help Aunt Cathy in and out of the shower and to practice some simple exercises the therapists showed us to relax her muscles and help with her breathing. Volunteers came, too, to help me with the shopping and the millions of errands that piled up.
But it wasn’t always easy. Even as her body became progressively weaker, Aunt Cathy’s mind remained as sharp as ever. She’d always enjoyed lively discussions over politics and people. She had definite ideas about what should be done for her physical care and… just as important, what shouldn’t. Sometimes she got frustrated and threw what we could only call her tantrums. “The terrible twos in my sixties,” she called them, complete with whining, kicking and words I wouldn’t have guessed would ever come out of Aunt Cathy’s mouth. It was pretty overwhelming at times. Especially when my older sister flew in to help for a couple of weeks. The minute she was in the door, Beth started bossing everything and everyone around. She took one look around the living room and noticed only the skates on the floor where the girls had left them. “Don’t you know that’s dangerous?” Or the pills I kept on the kitchen counter: “Don’t you know that direct sunlight can make them less effective?” Things really hit the fan, though, the night I heard Beth asking my husband just how he thought I could handle being executor for Aunt Cathy’s estate. “You know she’s never been able to balance even a simple checkbook,” she whispered. That was it. I threw a major tantrum of my own.
The social worker from hospice came and helped us sort it all out. Mostly, my sister needed to sort out her emotions. The gradual changes we’d seen in Aunt Cathy over the months came as a big shock to Beth. She was feeling guilty that she couldn’t help more. She was jumping straight into grief and feeling left out of the major decisions. The social worker helped us find a lawyer who’d meet with all of us, as a family. She coached us as we set up medical directives and a will that would spell things out just the way Aunt Cathy wanted. Everyone needed to know that Aunt Cathy’s wishes would count, even at the end when she couldn’t rely on her speech to express those wishes. She needed to know that even as her life was coming to end, she had the power to make that ending a good one.
And the ending, when it came, was good. One morning, Aunt Cath just slipped away. I had been sitting with her, sipping coffee and watching the sun come up through the woods behind the house. Aunt Cathy had always called it her favorite time of day, “beautiful in every corner of this big ol’ world,” she told me. And I’d smile, remembering how much of that big world she’d brought home over the years to my small corner of the U.P. “Go get ‘em, Aunt Cathy,” I whispered to myself. “Send us back a postcard with an angel or two.”
