A final Valentine’s Day lesson of love everlasting

Just after dinner this Valentine’s Day, while we were in our Florida home, my wife caught my attention as I was washing the dishes. She beamed a beatific smile, flashing me a thumbs-up from her wheelchair.

Because she was robbed of speech eight years ago by a pair of severe strokes, there is no way to know exactly what she meant by it. It might have been: “Thanks for cooking my favorite meal tonight.” Or it might have been: “What fun we’ve had over these past few days.” Or it might have been: “I love you so much it almost hurts.” It might even have been her approval of the little solar-powered dancing flower I gave her at breakfast that Valentine’s Day morning, the kind of tiny gesture we both treasure far above grand displays of love.

It might have been any of these—or maybe even all of them—because the meal was delicious; the past days had been packed with fun activities like strolling through an art fair then walking on the Naples pier and eating at one of her favorite restaurants; and our love has grown stronger and stronger every day, regardless of the frustrating physical obstacles that life has thrown our way.

And that little dancing flower really is adorable.

We settled in to enjoy the rest of the evening quietly. At 8 pm she signaled that I needed to help her get into her wheelchair to go to the bathroom. At 8:30, as she watched her favorite shows on TV, she held her paralyzed right arm in her left hand and gave me that look that asks me to come exercise the kinks out of her shoulder.

It was, you might say, a gentle way to end a day.

And, as it turns out, a gentle way to end a life.

I slipped into a guest bedroom to watch a bit of the Olympics on TV, and at 11:30, when I went to check on her before bedtime, her breathing was rapid and wheezy. I tried to wake her, but there was no response.

I called 911, but the instant the paramedic walked in the front door, her breathing stopped altogether.

EMT’s helped her breathe artificially, and we raced to the hospital where a CAT scan showed a hemorrhage had destroyed the part of her brain that controls breathing, consciousness, and several other vital functions. She had suffered a final, catastrophic stroke.

Life-support machines could keep her heart beating only a little while longer, so I made hurried phone calls to gather loved ones, if they could make it in time.

And by late afternoon on Friday, February 16, less than 48 hours after she flashed me that beatific Valentine’s smile and thumbs-up, our children from Illinois and her siblings from Georgia were all gathered at the bedside. Each of us in turn said in private whatever we needed to say to her. She could not hear us, of course, but that didn’t matter. When words must be said, they must be said.

By 6 p.m., Reverend Tim Navin of the San Marco Catholic Church arrived to offer last rites and a tender, eloquent prayer.

The life-support machines were removed, and Gail took a few frail breaths to fight the inevitable. But her heartbeat lingered — five minutes, ten. She wasn’t quite ready, it seemed. Not just yet. And that seemed just about right for Gail, because she was never one to walk away from a job not yet finished.

But what could be left to do that hadn’t already been done?

I bent down, put my lips to her ear, and sang to her in a whispered, sob-choked voice. It was a beautiful love song that was popular long ago, at the dawn of our 48-year marriage.

And as I sobbed out the last few words of the first verse in her ear, her heart stopped.

Outside the hospital window, a brilliant orange sunset faded.

The day was done.

After laughing and crying over our favorite stories about this wonderful woman who blessed and brightened all of our lives, the family members began to trickle out of town, going back to their lives that will never be quite the same ever again.

And now I am all alone in the house that Gail and I built together, a house made beautiful by her uncanny ability to turn a house into a home, inch by tender loving inch.

Friends worry about how I will fare without her, but they have little to fear. I will be fine, because I will never be without her.

It will be hard — that much is sure. But through her strokes, Gail has taught me that I have the power to face hurdles so daunting they might seem insurmountable. It was a long, hard lesson to learn — eight years in the making — but I think she knew at last that I had learned it well. She knew she had given me the strength to face any hurdle that might come.

And maybe that was the final meaning of her beatific smile and her thumbs-up on Valentines Day. Maybe she was saying: “You are ready for this now. Your caregiver labors are over. Thank you, and find peace.”

If you are a regular reader of this column, you already know my wife. I have told you innumerable tales of her — and especially of her spectacular garden, where family and friends will gather to remember her this summer when it is in full bloom. If you would like to meet Gail as she would like to be remembered, at the end of this column is a link to a video her sister made in her honor, filmed in her garden.

And if you would like to honor her memory, please heed one final lesson she has given me to learn:

Gather your loved ones around you. Do it now. Do not wait.

Give them a beatific smile. Flash them a thumbs-up. Hug them and sing a gentle song in their ear.

And if you still have the voice for it, whisper to them: “Thank you.”

Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

---