8-22-15:
O, this morning: “You can throw away my swim things, and keep for yourself what you think you can use.”
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Suddenly, from bed, telegraphic: “Manuscript! I want to look at the manuscript. And a pencil! My reading glasses!”
My heart breaks.
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8-23-15:
“What are your wishes, Dr. Sacks?” said the hospice nurse. “How would you like to pass?”
“At home,” answered O in a clear, steady voice, “with no pain or discomfort, and with my friends here.”
What bravery it took to say that, I thought to myself—bravery that must go unremarked upon because of course it must. But bravery that I will remember nevertheless.
“Okay, good, I’m going to make sure we honor your wishes,” the nurse said.
“Thank you,” he said.
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8-28-15:
O, who has had no appetite, suddenly asked to have smoked salmon and Ryvita for lunch. He insisted we get him out of bed, into his “dressing gown,” take him to his table, and “to see my piano.” We brought a plate to him: With incredible dignity, and slowness, he carefully cut a single piece at a time. He could only eat three bites. And when I suggested something sweet—some ice cream? He said, “No, a pear.” He had one slice then asked that we take him back to bed.
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8-29-15:
I am at his side, in his bedroom, where Kate, Maurine (our hospice nurse), and I have been keeping a special watch since 5:30 A.M. That’s when Maurine woke me in the other room, “Billy, come now—his breathing has changed.”
It has slowed to just three or four breaths per minute—long silences in between. He is no longer conscious. He is stretched out on his bed diagonally and looks comfortable. Maurine, who has been at the side of many patients as they die, tells us this is the last phase, but that it could go on for many hours, days maybe.
A little while ago, I looked around the room, crowded with bedsheets, towels, Depends, pads, medications, an oxygen tank and other medical equipment, and I began clearing it out, all of it. First, I brought in stacks of all of O’s books, cleared a bedside table, and put them there. I brought in a cycad plant and a fern. Kate joined me, and we cleared more space, making room on another table for some of O’s beloved minerals and elements, his fountain pens, a ginkgo fossil, his pocket watch. Elsewhere, a few books by his heroes—Darwin, Freud, Luria, Edelman, Thom Gunn—and photos—his father, Auden, his mother as a girl with her seventeen siblings, his aunts and uncles, his brothers. We brought in flowers, candles.
I am heartbroken but at peace.
Last night, before getting some sleep, I came in to see if he needed anything. I tucked him in and kissed his forehead.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I said.
“No.” His eyes were closed. He was smiling, as if seeing beautiful things.
“A lot.”
“Good,” O said, “very good.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Oliver’s Periodic Table
HOME
Two men from the funeral home got to the apartment at around four A.M. on Sunday morning. They were both very stocky and looked very strong, tough somehow, yet emanated gentleness, quietness. They went into the bedroom and took care of Oliver. They could not have been more respectful and polite. At that hour, there was no one on the sidewalk or street when we brought Oliver’s body down on a gurney, and they carefully placed it inside a waiting van. I felt grateful for that: the lush cover of darkness and warmth, not unlike the velvet blanket they had placed over him.
I tidied up a bit in his apartment and then went back to my place. I got into my own bed for the first time in more than a month; it seemed too large for me. By now, it was about six o’clock. I closed my eyes. I felt tired, grateful, peaceful, battered, sad, wise, old. I felt like Odysseus reaching shore.
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I left my apartment for the first time that evening. It was absolutely pouring rain, a drenching summer rain, the kind that cleans the sidewalks. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went to see Ali at his shop. He asked how I was. “Oliver died today,” I said.
Earlier, I had sent some e-mails to friends and family, but this was the first time I had actually said those three words aloud.
At first Ali looked like he didn’t understand what I’d said—he had always known him as The Doctor, not Oliver—but then he knew. He expressed his sympathy, tenderly, and said he would pray for us. I thanked him. I stood there awkwardly for a minute, and then Ali came from behind the counter to stand with me. There was no one else in the store. We looked out at the rain.
“Ten percent chance of rain, they say!” Ali exclaimed. “Ten percent! And this? What’s this?”
“It’s Oliver,” I said to Ali, “Oliver letting us know…”
I didn’t really believe it, but it felt good to say anyhow.