I met Jett on the evening of June 21, 1997 – the summer solstice. From that night until her death at 2:53pm October 15 we were pretty much constantly together. Our first date was a trip to Rockport and Gloucester. She loved Cape Ann, as did her mother. When her mother died in 1979, Jett buried her in Rockport and obtained the plot next to hers for herself. When her mother’s headstone was engraved she engraved hers too, but of course it was incomplete. We visited Jett’s grave on that first date – the same grave we will visit today for a rather less romantic reason. The headstone is still incomplete but will be finished soon as the missing data – the date of death and her last name at time of death – are now known.
Barb Rifkin, our common friend who didn’t fix us up because she didn’t think we would be a good match, has admitted that she was wrong. We were a very good match because we had shared interests and goals. And we were fearless. Dive into housing rehab and rental? Fly to Paris for a weekend? Go to Mexico on vacation when my mother was warning us about banditos? Go on a cruise when there were frequent reports of sickness and disaster? Sell our 2000-square-foot home, move into a 400-square-foot RV and travel the country full-time? We did all of those things and did them eagerly. We loved adventure.
If there was any doubt that we were compatible, the fact that we survived in a 400-square-foot RV for 8 years without killing each other is proof that we were. We may have disagreed but we never argued. The decision to go “on the road” was the best decision we ever made. No regrets. We traveled over 40,000 miles to all “lower 48” states. The well-worn truck in which she traveled those 40,000 miles will lead the procession today. We met great people, saw great places. We wanted to be “on the road” for 20 years or more . We loved our life together.
But we didn’t get 20 years of travel; we got only 8. And, in truth, we had fewer than 6 good years on the road. Starting with our transatlantic cruise in 2018 which we had to abort due to Jett’s low hemoglobin, she never felt really well again. Our travel became a matter of getting to a destination so that she could rest. I got out on my own to see places but she rarely felt well enough to accompany me. Yet nothing seemed to be seriously wrong. The hemoglobin problem was resolved by large doses of B12 and she got a clean bill of health from her doctor in the summer of 2018.
But 10 months later in May 2019, as we started our trip north for the summer, she went into the ER in Palm Coast FL with severe back pain. She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, metastasized to the brain and the spine. The tumor on the spine, of course, was the source of the back pain. The diagnosis was a shock – there had been no sign of cancer less than a year earlier – but it wasn’t a surprise as she had smoked heavily for over 50 years. Our planned 3-day stay became a 5-week battle of survival.
She nearly died there. She was presented with the option of entering hospice and was told if she did that she would be dead within 2 weeks. Her family – who rushed to her bedside – convinced her to try one round of chemotherapy. Just one. Then she could decide if hospice was best.
She did one round of chemo and it didn’t go well. But she decided to try immunotherapy and the results, for a year, were fantastic. Her doctor actually called her response “miraculous”. All of her tumors shrank. Her last MRI, just a month before her death, showed that the tumors were continuing to shrink. But she continued to lose weight and became very frail and unstable. I told her daily that she needed to eat more. That malnutrition was becoming more critical than cancer. Nothing worked. She would nibble, then push it away. I believe that in the 2 weeks prior to her death there was not a day when she took in more than 500 calories.
The end, when it came, was sudden, unexpected and very gentle. We arrived in Fort Myers on Wednesday, October 7. She arranged to see her oncologist the following Monday, but when Monday arrived she was too sick and asked me to cancel. I refused and instead went to see the oncologist myself. I described Jett’s fragile condition, my concern about her weight and her increasing hallucinations and mental confusion. She was sensing that her mother was near. And her grandchildren. The doctor said that people nearing death often saw or sensed the presence of departed or distant loved ones. She suggested that we talk to hospice as they would be better positioned to intensively treat her malnutrition.
The hospice nurse arrived at 4pm on Wednesday and spoke to us for 2 hours. Jett was cheerful, responsive and helpful. We agreed that she would enter hospice, with the understanding that if she could regain some weight then cancer treatments would resume. The papers were signed at 6pm.
At 8pm a truck arrived, delivering oxygen. I thought this urgency was unnecessary as Jett, despite her lung cancer and COPD, had never needed oxygen.
At around 9pm she called me into the bedroom, as she often did. But rather than requesting coffee or assistance into the bathroom, she pointed at a pile of bedding and said “Why did you kill that other cat?” Of course my response was “When did I ever kill a cat?” She looked at me, accusingly, and said “I read it in a book.” She fell asleep soon thereafter. She may have mumbled a bit as she drifted off, but nothing intelligible. Her last words were to accuse me of killing a cat. That is either silly or too deep for me to comprehend. But, like so much else about Jett, it was truly memorable.
Around 11pm that night I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Her light was still on and her eyes were slightly open. I asked if she was awake but she didn’t reply. I believe now that she was already in a coma.
But I wasn’t particularly alarmed until I tried to wake her at 8am Thursday. Usually a light touch woke her but that morning nothing worked. Touching, shaking, shouting. No response. And her eyes were half open. I called hospice. A nurse arrived and confirmed that she was in a coma. I started sending out the alarm.
That nurse left around noon and another arrived at 2. Between nurses I was alone with her and sat with her, The morning nurse had put her on oxygen – the oxygen that I didn’t think she would need just 12 hours before – but she was breathing partially through her open mouth. I thought her mouth was dry so I wet a washcloth and rubbed it gently on her lips. Though she was completely unresponsive in all other ways – no movement of her limbs, her eyes open and staring into space unblinking – at that moment a single tear escaped her dry eye and ran down her cheek.
That tear.That tear will haunt me forever. Was it an involuntary response of a comatose woman? A recognition of impending death? Or, perhaps, a final, farewell kiss? Her way of telling me “I love you and I loved our life together.”
Today, if you see a tear escape my eye and run down my cheek it will be my way of telling her “I love you and I loved our life together.”
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