A Stolen Kiss

We, the living, are entwined with the dead.

I am no expert on death. I have become an expert on caring for people living in the face of death. And in so doing, I have come to learn one thing: death is for the living. The only people who live through death are those who bear witness to the dying. I've never had anyone come back to tell me how it went for them, how well I succeeded at making them "comfortable.” I only know how they appeared. The people I can ask, the only ones who remember, who take the experience forward into the future, are those at the bedside. We, the living, are entwined with the dead.

                                                              ****

I didn’t know this visit would be my last to Mr. Zuver. I saw him just three weeks earlier when he was sitting at his dining room table, getting up periodically to walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water or later to the bathroom to relieve himself and then again to get his medication for shortness of breath. I didn’t know he was dying so quickly because he was still speaking in full, uninterrupted sentences with pride and enthusiasm as he spoke of his wife’s green thumb, noting my admiration of their garden framing the view of the sparkling lagoon in the afternoon sun. I didn’t know, until this morning, when his wife answers the door in her pajamas, smile faded but unmistakable, hair tussled, and clutching her purple Lucite clipboard tightly.  

Mr. Zuver is lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the living room, facing the sliding glass door with a view of the garden, lagoon and beyond. His breath is slow and measured, but his thin chest is heaving beneath the white sheet in each of its failing attempts to bring more oxygen into his body. His right eye is closed part-way, but his left is open fully and quick to focus on my face as I approach his bed and gently press my hand to his.

“Hello Mr. Zuver,” I say with a smile.  

His wife is on the other side of him, caressing his right hand.

“It’s your doctor,” she says.  

He opens both eyes now to scrutinize the statement and then forcibly whispers, “Oh [breath] the [breath] pretty [breath] one [breath]” and gives me a wink and a toothy grin.  

His hand is warm, thin and weak. His whole body remains motionless with the exception of his chest in an attempt to conserve what little energy he has to keep his breath going. He is waging a losing battle. Years of smoking have long since destroyed his lungs. 

Mr. Zuver looks at me after I finish my exam and says, “I [breath] wouldn’t [breath] start [breath] over [breath] again [breath].”  

Not certain what he is referring to, I look to his wife for insight.  

She bends near him and gently asks, “What dear? Start what over again?”  

He says with effort, “This.”  

“Oh,” she replies, sitting down still holding his hand, “this dying you mean.” 

He nods again with an appreciative smile as her seemingly telepathic powers save him more precious breaths.

I look at the two of them in that moment, the wife so focused and intent on keeping her husband strong. Her ever-present clipboard, noting the history of all medication adjustments including the numerous ones I’ve made this morning alone, never relinquishing the power and hope those pages hold—a tether keeping his life with her. That cord so visibly fraying now.

Mr. Zuver’s weakened and frail body lays still and flat in bed. His left eye remains open (his wife explains that as he is seeing double and has been unable to get himself to the eye doctor for a new prescription of eyeglasses, “And, well, now…” her throat closes off before she can finish the sentence of acknowledged futility.) “He is ready,” Mrs. Zuver tells me. She settles down beside me as I continue his medication review with our nurse. “He has told me so. He is so tired. . . . He has fought a long, long time,” her grip tightens on the clipboard resting on her lap. 

Her eyes well-up as I place my hand on hers and say, “And you.”  

She nods, “It’s so hard … you know….”  

“No” I softly reply, “I don’t know. I can’t imagine. But I can see.”  

She nods silently behind tears, “No, of course you don’t.”

Several minutes pass before she asks, “How [pause with a forced swallow] what do I do when it happens?” Her clipboard on her lap visibly trembles. “I mean, phone calls have to be made … and …” She looks down, and tears splash the paper. 

“You sit,” I say, tightening my grip on her hand. As I repeat myself, I catch her gaze in my eyes. “You just sit.”  

She takes a deep, knowing breath and nods. 

“That’s all there is for you to do … right now and from now on.”  

She looks at her clipboard as I speak.  

“You have been taking such impeccable care of him for so long,” I continue, looking toward our nurse busy tending to Mr. Zuver’s slurry of morning medications, “let us unburden you now so you can just be with him.” 

 We sit together in silence for a while, her knuckles loosening but not relinquishing their hold on his lifeline.

A while later, as I prepare to leave, I lean over Mr. Zuver in direct line of vision of his left eye and say, “Can I get you anything?”  

His wife, now at his right side, strokes his arm like a tender kitten. He looks to her and then flashes a devilish grin my way, 

“A [breath] kiss [breath]?”  

I hesitate for only a moment and then lean down to give him a kiss on his lips, while memories of my grandfather come rushing in as he puckers up with such sheer delight. 

He immediately turns back to his wife and says, 

“You [breath] 

for- [breath] 

give [breath] 

this [breath] 

silly [breath] 

old [breath] 

man [breath]?”  

“Not so old…” she says almost under her breath.  

He deliberately adds, 

“You’ve [breath] 

had [breath] 

many [breath] 

kisses [breath] 

you [breath] 

know [breath].”  

She nods and whispers, “I know. It’s all right.”  

He continues without breaking his gaze, 

“You [breath] 

can [breath] 

have [breath] 

more [breath]…”  

Their hands lock. Chests heaving in synchrony.¹

1. A version of this story originally appeared in sPARKLE & bLINK, the print-version of live performances curated by the San Francisco-based non-profit, Quiet Lightening.