Vigil.
I knew this morning.
Somewhere deep in my bones, I knew.
In the quiet before Nicolas woke, as I splashed water on my face before going downstairs to supervise Joe’s coffee making, I knew that the call would come today. Maybe tomorrow. Certainly no later than Monday.
But the day did as these days tend to lately and I forgot. Somewhere in between Nicolas taking a green crayon to the bottom half of the kitchen door and the suppressed giggles our nanny and I shared as we taught him about the power of a scrubby sponge, the knowing starting slipping away. By mid-day it was just a flicker of a thought I had had earlier. And by just before dinnertime, as Joe spun Nicolas around and the living room filled with peals of laughter, it was all but gone.
It came back in an instant when my phone’s screen flashed “Mom Cell” just before 9pm.
Papa John, my mother’s father, is no longer eating or drinking.
He will die soon.
***
It’s after midnight now and I’m up waiting on my brother and sister-in-law’s flight from Maui to land in Phoenix. For the text I sent several hours ago to reach her phone after it has been switched back on from airplane mode. For them to drive home. For the call that will come after they have.
Nicolas cried out some time ago and needed to be rocked back to sleep. As we swayed, his head on my shoulder, I thought of the room in Minnesota where a hospice volunteer named Marsha was holding vigil at my grandfather’s bedside. Lights dimmed, Marsha and I both waiting for our charges to drift off.
Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhhh.
There is a liminal space in these hours. When the glow of the nightlight softens the edges between now and not just yet. And I know that if I fall asleep, dawn will come too soon.
But I also know that even if I were to stay up all night, there’s nothing I can do to change the natural course of things.
Morning will eventually come.
Mourning will come too.
