1. Meeting Vera and John
The first day, I drove up and my
housemate asked from the front porch
if I brought any toilet paper
and all of a sudden Vera was in her front yard
reaching towards us with a roll in hand
You can have this
They've lived in the white house next door
since they married in '55.
They're Portuguese. Catholic.
He's a big man with a crewcut
goes to mass every Sunday; she doesn't.
She tells me there were huge trees all up
this street but they had to be cut down long time ago
She doesn't like the people from the apartments
parking in front of her place, so she
leaves her trash cans in the street.
They've called the cops back and forth.
In autumn she brings me
a piece of apple pie.
John is the baker, rolls his own dough.
In winter, a bowl of lemons.
In July, birthday cake she made,
his 90th.
He has fallen a few times.
One time last summer it was in the front yard and
I asked the construction guys across the street
to help pick him up.
He had been leaning on the mower cutting the lawn
but he tripped and down he went onto the grass
with the mower tipping and following in slow motion
on top of him.
2. John's Illness
He's in and out of doctor's appointments and
the hospital with pains and problems,
the medications don't change anything.
Friday afternoon about two weeks ago
he can't feel his hands and legs and they decide
to call the ambulance.
The ambulance drivers can't take him
to Alta Bates because of covid.
At Alameda Hospital Emergency
they find out he has pneumonia,
so they put him in isolation.
In the past, every time he went somewhere
Vera stayed at their daughter's house,
but now she decided to stay home
alone for the first night in 65 years.
and she did okay.
I have to be able to do this.
We sit in the driveway ten feet apart and
shuck a whole tub
of fava beans she harvested this morning.
She boils them for about 15 minutes,
then layers them in a dish with garlic,
olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper,
lets them sit for a couple hours.
She'll eat that all day, till it's gone.
3. Hospice
The test results come back on Sunday.
He's negative so he's out of isolation,
but they'll keep him until the lungs clear.
When he's released on Tuesday, she
picks him up in their black Cadillac.
She pulls up next to the path,
gets the walker out of the trunk and
places it for him. He reaches out and she
guides his hand onto the metal tube.
He gets one foot onto the ground and she bends in
and pushes his other foot past the edge of the car door.
He lurches forward and he's
leaning on the walker. Arms tense,
he moves step by painful step
across the grass and walkway
then up into the shadowed house.
Exhausted and visibly thinner, she
waits for the visiting nurse to come
to get him bathed and check the medications.
His legs are bruised and blown up like balloons.
On Friday John says
he doesn't want to go on like this.
He can't eat, can't get up from the chair.
He wants to die.
He's ready to go. That's it.
Saturday, the hospice nurses
come to set everything up.
Vera puts the orange roses I brought
on the mantel where he can see them.
4. His Choice
When the nurses are gone
and the conference call with the kids is done
he says what he wants to say.
He wants her to plant the seedlings he started;
she's been watering them for the couple of weeks
he's been unable to get up.
He says
I love you
Don't worry about anything that's happened.
I forgive you
I don't hold anything against you,
no argument we've had that we can't
even remember right now,
it doesn't matter.
They forgive each other.
I love you.
He said it to me and I said it to him the same.
He fell asleep and she stayed next to him in the chair
watching TV and holding his hand.
She must have dozed off until she was startled awake
by an awful choking sound.
She knew he was gone.
Weeping, she washed his peaceful face.
5. Flowers and Seeds
She’s outside washing her car right now so it'll
be clean to drive to the cemetery on Friday.
Tomorrow she’s going to iron her black clothes,
parsing out her mourning in the quiet house.
It won't be the way he wanted it
He wanted to have his three days,
first the family, then the rosary,
then the mass and the burial.
But it can't be that way.
Ten is the most you can have at a funeral;
there will be eight counting the priest.
She ordered the yellow roses;
that he likes
and lilies,
because he told her lilies, too.
She'll plant the seedlings.
I can help her harvest the rest of the fava beans when she's ready,
maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.
And then there's the plot of beans he raises for seed.
And I say, you'll have to harvest it to get the seeds for next year
and she says I know
life goes on
