The Year 2002 - A Year of Many Changes

THE YEAR 2002 – A YEAR OF MANY CHANGES

On July 12, 2002, my husband, our dear Haigaz decided to leave this reality to join his father, mother, brothers and sisters who have all gone before him. He was 98.

Three months before that, on 4/24/2002 I myself had begun feeling unwell and my friend Basha Schwartz took me to a gynecologist who on 6/5/2002 after some tests diagnosed me with uterine cancer, fortunately contained, though it would necessitate an immediate hysterectomy. There was no time to dwell on that for the very next day I had my dreaded appointment in court re our bankruptcy.

It started with some amazing number six synchronicities: the date was 6/6. At the front desk I was asked to sign in. The doorman looked at his watch and dictated 11:31 AM. I filled in that time and noticed right away that it contained 131: my lucky number 13 and its reverse 31, the year I was born. 11:31, of course, sums to six. We were each given security tags to hang around our necks. Mine sported 66. “Bankruptcy? Room 1401,” the doorman said, and these four numbers summed to yet another six.

While explaining our situation - that I had tried to supplement our sole income, namely Social Security, with money borrowed from credit cards and home equity to invest in the stock market, which venture, alas, had turned out to be unsuccessful - Judge Carmine Maggio only nodded. When I explained that Haigaz could not be present because he’d been bedridden for the last two years the judge became concerned and asked if I had someone to help me. I told him that my son Corky lived with us, that he had driven me here and would drive me back. Quite out of the blue Judge Maggio asked, “Do you make Sauerbraten?” When I looked at him surprised, he said, “My wife is German and I love it. Next time you make it let me know. I’ll come over.” He smiled, shook my hand and dismissed me. I sailed, as fast as my walker with seat would allow, out of the courtroom, and for the next ten minutes was unable to hide my elation. This had gone better than expected.

Four days later, on Monday, June 10, 2002, my daughter took me to an appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Albert A. Pineda. On sitting down in the waiting room I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, on the wall opposite me, hung a framed fan. Anyone who knows me knows that I myself have several fan tapestries and other fans in my house ever since my out of body projection from the dream state in 1983. My daughter looked and said, “Well, mom, it seems that we’re in the right place.” “Yep,” I said. “He even has the same first name as Papa, namely Albert.”

Exactly one week later, on Monday, June 17, 2002, my birthday, incidentally, or not so incidentally, I spent the day in the hospital getting poked and probed, X-rayed and scanned, EKG’d, and blood examined - all in preparation for major surgery the following day, Tuesday, June 18, 2002.

     For this appointment so early in the morning we were going in style. My son Richard’s friend Pedro offered to drive us in his Lincoln town car. Diane left her apartment at five, drove five minutes to our house and when Pedro arrived shortly afterwards she and I got in. We drove by Richard’s apartment and picked him up. While driving to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, N. J., Diane had a story to tell: “Here I am, driving out of the garage at five in the morning and there’s this beautiful red robin sitting there by the side of the road looking at me. Of course I’m thinking that he’ll fly away as I’m approaching but no, after I passed him I could still see him from the rear view mirror, just sitting there. He hadn’t moved an inch. It was so weird. This has got to be a good omen, don’t you think?” I thought of our Writers Round Robin group who must have been sending us their good wishes, I was sure.

    At St. Joseph’s hospital the nurse took us to a room, told me to change into my hospital gown and told us to wait. Before long an orderly in green scrubs came in and greeted Richard and Diane. “My name’s Noah,” he said. Then he came to stand before me. I was sitting on the side of the bed. With a long outstretched finger pressing firmly into my shoulder, he proclaimed, “I am St. Joseph … and you …are … healed!” He said it with such authority that we were speechless. For one second I actually thought, well that’s it, then. Why still go through with the surgery? But here I was wrong. Noah told me to lie down on the gurney and then wheeled me through corridors upon corridors, and finally into an elevator, all the while regaling Diane and Richard who walked on either side of us, with stories of where he had served in the Special Forces, they were called the Green Dragons and mentioning some illustrious people that he had met. Before we knew it we had arrived. There stood Dr. Pineda, tall and handsome, in the middle of the operating room like a sentinel, arms on hips, waiting for me, smiling. “Just like in the movies,” Diane said afterwards. And that was more or less it. I remember having been placed on the operating table, meeting the anesthesiologist, and the next thing I knew I was awake and asking the nurse who attended to me whether my children knew where I was. Silly to ask if it’s over, I thought. It must be. The nurse asked Diane how old I was. She was obviously impressed with my no nonsense attitude. Three days after the surgery on Friday, June 21, 2002 I was discharged, and once again went in style, this time in Basha’s Lexus.

     I now found out that the day after my surgery, at home, Haigaz had been in a two-hour coma from which Diane and Corky were able to talk him back to us. This was not a good time for him to go, they thought. It would have been too hard for me to cope with so soon after surgery. As it was, coming home from the hospital I had to be careful and wasn’t able to physically take care of him and turn him from side to side like I had been doing. That’s why our house doctor thought it the perfect time to have a feeding tube inserted into his stomach since he had been having trouble swallowing for a while now. The idea was for Haigaz to be in the hospital for ten and in a home for another 21 days. Medicare would pay for that. Then he’d be home with us again. Alas, that’s not what happened.

     I talked to Haigaz every day on the phone. They would hold the receiver to his ear so he could hear my voice. I visited him in the hospital though I wasn’t supposed to “go among people so soon after being operated on.” On Diane’s birthday, July 5, Haigaz was transferred to Dunroven, a beautiful home where Corky and I saw him for the last time on Wednesday, July 10^th. I cried, for we couldn’t wake him up and I sensed that he wasn’t with us anymore though the nurse told us that she had taken him to another room to listen to music and that he had enjoyed it. She made us feel better and I clung to the belief that he was simply too exhausted. On the 12^th I made my daily call. In a loud voice I said, “Haigaz, I love you, you’ll be home before you know it.” That evening we were all together, Diane, Corky, Richard and I, when the phone rang. “He passed away peacefully in his sleep,” the nurse said.

     It was the evening of July 12, 2002. Haigaz was 98 years old. I was 71. 98 and 71 both equal 8. Three days later, July 15, 2002, which date also sums to eight, would have been our 44^th wedding anniversary. That night I had a dream: Haigaz was sitting on a garden bench. I heard children’s voices. “Mr. Kaboolian, Mr. Kaboolian!” They were shouting. I couldn’t see them but knew that they were running towards him. I thought, oh, no, I cannot let them find him like this. He’s dead. I started running towards the bench but when I got there the bench was empty. Looking towards the right I saw him. He wasn’t looking a day older than he had when I first met him in 1958 at the age of 54. He gave me that great smile of his and lay down on the lush green grass beckoning me to join him. He kissed me, and I asked him, “Do you like it here?” “Yes,” he said, “yes.” Then I woke up. So we’d been together on our 44^th wedding anniversary, anyway, I thought as I got ready for the first day of radiation at Holy Name Hospital Regional Cancer Center in Teaneck, N. J. I didn’t need chemotherapy because my lymph nodes had not been involved. “Radiation to go the extra mile,” the doctor had said. “Just to be sure.” It was a long five and a half weeks of daily treatments broken up by some glorious weekend visits to Basha’s country house in the Berkshires, which did wonders for my constitution. I’m feeling fine.

Our life has changed. Diane is selling her one bedroom condo and buying a two bedroom in the same building in which Basha also lives so that we can all be together. I’m selling our house and Corky will rent an apartment for himself. We will still all live near each other. We are allowing ourselves to miss the real Haigaz, for the last few years he wasn’t quite himself, and though he was there in the flesh his spirit had gone on ahead. He still recognized us, however, and gave us his wonderful smile to the last. Just thinking of that and seeing it in our minds will light up our world always.

Ute's Poetry and Musings