Marge's Requiem

If their bull terrier couldn’t leave him, neither could Marge. Teri remained curled up facing him, occasionally licking his hand, sniffing around his neck & head, or trying to nuzzle her way under his arm. Marge just held onto him, rubbing his back & side as though it might somehow restore his life, & letting her tears roll off her cheeks, drenching the bed.

It was over nine hours before any of them moved from where they lay—a few minutes past four o’clock in the afternoon. Her tears had been therapeutic, but now she needed to do something. She removed the flashlight from her bedside stand & turned it on. Everything was dark now that they'd lost electricity. Everything she did from here on out would require either flashlight or candlelight.

She tried calling Penny, but there was no signal. That meant she couldn’t call the funeral home, their doctor, pastor, or anyone else either.

She stared blankly over the kitchen table as her cellphone slipped through her hands & fell to the floor. What do you do with your beloved but currently deceased husband when there is no one you can call & nowhere you can go because your home is completely buried in snow?

She drew a tissue from the box on the table, blew her nose, stood up, dropped the tissue in the trash, walked over to the sink & washed her hands—all without a single thought passing through her head. She was completely numb. Every bit of her was set to auto pilot, simply doing what any loving & devoted wife of her generation would do.

She needed to clean him up, get him dressed, strip & make the bed. So, she pulled a basin from underneath the sink & filled it with warm water, testing to make sure it wasn’t too hot. She wouldn’t want to burn him. His skin had always been sensitive. She drew a washcloth & towel from the drawer & carried it all into the bedroom, setting them down on the rug next to his side of the bed.

By now his rigor mortis had begun to subside, which made this next part a lot easier. She unbuttoned his pajama top & worked it back & forth until she had freed it from both his arms. Next, she pulled his t-shirt up over his head & removed it in the same fashion. She tossed both over by the door to take to the laundry later.

Somewhere in the back of her brain she understood that, as he had died, his bladder & bowels would have released themselves. That explained the smell & the wet sheets. She slid his pajama bottoms over his legs & tossed them on the floor with the others. Then, using the elastic on the back of his undershorts, she wiped as much of his bowel movement as she could into his no-longer-tidy-whities & carefully removed them. She took them to the bathroom, pressed the bm out into the toilet, & flushed it. In the fresh water, she proceeded to rinse the shorts as best she could, wrung them out, flushed the toilet again, & placed the wet shorts on top of the other dirty clothes.

She washed her hands thoroughly in the bathroom sink, then returned to the basin of warm water, lifted the washcloth, wrung it out, & proceeded to wash every portion of his body. She did this slowly & tenderly as an act of love & devotion, beginning with his face & hands, working from that which was cleanest toward that which was most dirty.

When she was finished, she took the basin to the bathroom, poured the water down the toilet & flushed it again. She took the dirty washcloth & towel to the pile of clothes & laid them on top. Then she returned to the kitchen where she rinsed out the basin, filled it once more with warm water, drew another washcloth & towel from the drawer, & proceeded to wash him a second time just as patiently & tenderly as before.

Once she had completed this, she removed the bedding, rolling it from her side until it was right against his back so that when she rolled him over onto his back, she could remove it the rest of the way. She placed the bedding on top of the pile, then picked up her basin, returned to the kitchen & repeated his washing a third time.

After she had rinsed & cleaned the basin, she carried the dirty pile of clothes & bedding to the laundry room, put the sheets in the washing machine, added the detergent & started the load. The blanket, washcloths, towels & clothes would wait until later. Then she returned to the bedroom, set out a fresh pair of underwear & pajamas & proceeded to dress him. She had planned to remake the bed, but the mattress was still wet. So instead, she sat next to him & watched him as she stroked his hair & kissed his cheek.

“Penny had better watch out. Those cheeks are for me alone.” She remembered her words to him from just two days before with a warm kind of sadness. When would she be able to tell Penny & Ralph their friend was gone?

Teri was still with him on the bed. She had not left to eat her food, drink from her water bowl, or use the bathroom since he had passed. She lay there with her front paws on his stomach, her head laying on top but alert, with her eyes flashing back & forth as though afraid someone was about to take him away.

As Marge sat there, she thought, “You know, if you just looked at his face you could imagine he was simply sleeping there, caught in the middle of a snore.” As many times as she had begged him to do a sleep study & get a C-Pap machine, she was going to miss that snore.

She thought about the things he had always done for her around the house. Not just shoveling the walks & taking out the trash or mowing the lawn. It was all the things he knew how to fix & maintain, things she would now have to figure out on her own. She wasn’t even sure she could change a light bulb without his help.

“Except for spiders,” she chuckled to herself. “He was deathly afraid of them. I always had to kill them or carry them out of the house for him. Spiders & wasps.”

“Isn’t it funny,” she thought, “how you can be going through the worst day of your life & something trivial & meaningless can still make you smile?”

She thought about the backyard & his favorite project. He had tended those flowers for years, every rose perfectly placed, every bed beautifully mulched & raked, every patch of soil nicely balanced with fertilizer & watered. And the pond he had created, with the pumps which sent beautiful cascades & waterfalls over his rock gardens, each of them returning to their source where the cycle would begin again. Every fall he had drained the pond & removed all the pumps to keep them from freezing & being damaged. Now the pond was frozen over, filled with ice & snow, & she had to wonder if it would ever flow again. Or would it remain an empty & lifeless edifice, a tribute to the man he once had been?

She had always been the one to cook & clean & mind the kids, two of which he never learned how to do. But she had learned some things from him. Like how to figure out which lightbulb she needed. Yes, she could change a lightbulb & she could do it with the best of them. And she knew the difference between a Phillips head & a flat head screwdriver.

He’d also made sure she knew where all their financial papers & life insurance policies were. She’d be wanting to find those in the morning. But right now, she had more work to do.

She had decided she couldn’t just leave him as he was. She had no idea how long it would be before someone would come for them. She couldn’t move him. It had been hard enough for her to roll him on his back. So, she had decided she would pack him in ice. She picked up the bucket by the back door which she could still open far enough to do what she needed & filled it with snow. The blizzard continued to rage outside. She never knew it had been beautiful earlier in the afternoon. With her bucket full, she carried it into the bedroom & began packing it around him.

She spent the rest of the night doing this & well into the morning. Teri didn’t move until she had to, when it was the only place left for the ice to go.

She knew she would be mopping water in the morning & have to do it all over again. But she vowed she would do it for as long as it had to be done. She would not abandon her Murray.

But at the moment, satisfied she had done what she could, she had to admit she was exhausted & could do no more. Her head was beginning to feel as though a sledgehammer was pounding it from the inside & she’d started feeling a little dizzy & nauseous. She needed to go to bed. Not her bed or their bed, but the one in the guest room.

As she brushed her teeth & used the bathroom, she thought once more about all the things her husband had taught her over the years. He had wanted to make sure she could take care of herself if he happened to go first. Now she had to wonder if it had been enough. She flushed the toilet & washed her hands.

He’d mentioned sewer vents, but she had never gone with him to know what they were or what he did with them. There was something about methane & carbon monoxide & they had installed detectors, but she never remembered which ones they were as opposed to those for sensing smoke.

She was so tired, she didn’t notice the funny gurgling noise the toilet made. Nor did she hear the carbon monoxide detector when it went off several hours later.

It was still chirping when the rescue & recovery team found them.