Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me(55)
Today, he wants me to look up the meaning of the Latin “nunc dimittis.”
As is almost always the case with O, it wasn’t necessary: He’d had the definition exactly right in the first place: nunc dimittis is “the final song in a religious service.”
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8-11-15:
I, sleeping on the floor right outside the bedroom (so as not to disturb him), wake to the sound of O yawning—such a sweet sound, like a puppy’s.
“I had a beautiful sleep!” he says—a rare thing for an insomniac like him to say.
It is 2 in the morning. He needs to use the bathroom.
“Hug me,” I instruct. He wraps his arms around my neck, I pull him toward me, get him seated on the side of the bed, then stand him up, wait a moment to make sure he is stable. I kiss his neck. “This is my favorite part of the day,” I tell him.
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O is increasingly letting go, letting things fall away, the inessential: Just days after he was devouring gefilte fish with such relish and delight, now it is only the jelly he likes—“No more fish balls.”
Even swimming no longer appeals—“The ratio of risk and unpleasantness far outweighs the benefit at this point,” mostly because of the catheter, the risk of it getting infected.
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More and more, unconsciously, he keeps his eyes closed all the time. His eyes are closed when he eats, when he talks, when we read to him, as if he saves his eyesight only for writing.
And yet, also, all is not grim.
Last night, I went in to say good night:
“My love,” he says as I lean over to kiss him.
“Sleep well,” I say.
Pause.
“What did you say?” O asks.
“Sleep well.”
“Oh, I thought you said, ‘Wow!’ I didn’t know what you were referring to but it seemed a very positive thing to say.”
We giggled.
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8-15-15:
O can no longer read easily—it’s too difficult to hold the magnifying glass and book—so he has asked us—Kate, Hallie, Hailey, Orrin—any of us who are with him—to read to him. He does not like professionally recorded audio books—not at all.
We are reading H. G. Wells stories, Men of Mathematics, Sherlock Holmes, The Odyssey…
“I love it, I love reading to you,” I tell him. “I feel very close to you.”
He nods. “It becomes another form of intimacy.”
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8-16-15:
3 A.M., walking into his room to check on him: O: “How did you know …? How did you know I’d be awake?”
“I could hear you smile,” I say.
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He woke twice last night. The first time, we go to the kitchen. I get him seated in a chair, and he eats orange Jell-O (“Refreshing!” he murmurs) and sips some protein-milk. Later, his second waking, I bring the Jell-O to him as he sits on the bed. He is sweetly groggy. I sit across from him. He pauses, looks at me quizzically: “We’re not going to catch a plane anywhere, are we?”
“No,” I reply quietly.
O smiles, then proceeds to tell me about a “mad, ferocious dream,” involving trying to get an Edsel car, improbably, through a too-small doorway—finally, people had to knock down the whole door to get the car through.
“Have you ever seen an Edsel?” he asks me.
“Only in pictures.”
“An absurd car,” he says, shaking his head.
Karen, Fourteenth Street
8-16-15:
“I say I love writing, but really it is thinking I love—that rush of thoughts—new connections in the brain being made. And it comes out of the blue.” O smiled. “In such moments: I feel such love of the world, love of thinking…”
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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.