My hospice patient Martin was sitting up in bed when I came to visit. We both knew he didn’t have long to live but still, he was comfortable, plumped and plush inside his four-poster bed. Martin was a well-known artist, represented by several national and international galleries, and enjoyed being flamboyantly gay.
I’m thinking about what I want to take with me to the next life, he said. I’ve got a suitcase and I want your help.
He was joking; he was serious. Following his directions, I packed his favorite paint brushes, a velvet cape, and photographs of his many lovers. Did he think he could have these cremated with him? Probably not, but we laughed as I added a chewed-up dog toy, and some fiber-rich breakfast cereal. I helped him to the bathroom and then tucked him back in bed and went to do his grocery shopping.
When I came back an hour later, he was still under his satin quilt, but all the breath had been taken from him, his frail body suddenly still. He was smiling, and I hoped one of his favorite lovers had come to walk him across the radiant divide.
A week later Martin’s hospice team gathered and we celebrated his extravagant life with champagne and bite-size burritos. His ashes were in a copper urn; the contents of his suitcase dispersed among his closest friends.
That night I began thinking about what I wanted to put into my take- it -with- you suitcase.
Make a list, Death whispered. You can take more than they’d have you believe.
Memories? I asked. Feelings?
Definitely, she said.
Ok. I always want to remember the feeling of my daughter slipping out of my body, the wonder of her tiny mouth groping for my nipple, Tina the midwife laughing, saying it’s a girl, just like I knew it was.
I’d like to remember the feeling of the first night with a new lover, not just the tentative apprehension but the deep, unexpected connection to the Divine.
I’d like to take the innocence of my first acid trip when my heart expanded into a thousand blazing suns and I gave away my dead father’s diamond ring to a hard scrabble lad who needed it. Where’s the ring now? I ask Death, but she only smiles.
I want to gather up the songs of the dawn birds who greet the rising sun, the taste of ocean salt as it dries on my skin, the sound of a tenor in his prime singing Puccini. Full moon eclipse, baby’s first laugh, the red of a hummingbird’s throat.
I want to leave with hallelujah hymns of praise tucked into my pockets, praise for the earth and her generosity, praise for rain that still falls and seasons that still turn, praise for the perfection of design built into every animate being.
Go on, Death encourages.
I want to remember all that I grieved and how a broken heart gifted me with compassion and kinship.
I want to sew into the lining of my garment with small stitches of gratitude the names of all my friends and relatives, living and dead, for shared sorrow and joy.
I want to pack the memory of my partner’s gentle ways and how he softened my rough edges, how I came to feel safe and at home with him after years of restless wandering.
I want every second of living without self-doubt, every risk I ever took to step out of the shadow and know myself whole. I want every moment I dared to live wholeheartedly so that I might leave the way I first arrived on earth, filled with wonder, well fed, holding close to the secret name I was given at birth, trusting love to bless, sustain and guide me home with my suitcase filled with joy
______________________________________________________________________________________
Read more stories like this in my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging available from Amazon.
Nancy London 