The Yellow Tree Doesn

The Yellow Tree Doesn’t Forget

By Paula L. High, © 2005
November 2005

It’s a crisp November mid-morning. As I look out the window of my office, I see the tree out in front with its leaves turning that bright, flaming-yellow color that it does every year. Each time a breeze comes through, it causes masses of the golden leaves to rain down upon the street and the passing vehicles. It’s beautiful. It remembers to do this each year, without prompting from any of us. When the sun is at this angle, this time of day, the cheery, brilliant color reflects the outdoor light and casts a vivid yellow hue onto everything in my office. On a sunny day like today, it changes the way things in my office are lit this time of year. It’s like no other time of year – it makes for a unique couple of weeks. As pretty as it is, it reminds me of a week that changed my life a few years ago.

That was November of 2001. I will never ever forget the main events that transpired that week of my life . . . of his death. It was surreal. It’s not everyday that such an important person in your life, a love of your life, goes into the hospital for one last time and dies at the tender age of thirty-three. But now four years later, while I remember the various major points, I find that I am forgetting subtle details about the events of that week. At first, that mortified me. Did forgetting little bits make it less important? Good-Heavens, no! It saddened me a great deal! Then . . . I realized that’s probably how he would want it. He would rather I loose the sad memories and remember more of the happy ones. I just wish we’d had more time to make happy memories. Having only nine and a half months just wasn’t enough time!

That span of time from November 5^th through the 16^th was a little more than a week. It went by at lightning speed. And yet it also went in very slow motion . . . a bit like an accident happens. At the time, I had no way of knowing what was about to happen or how it would impact my life. When that week had passed, I had difficulty sleeping so I stayed up late many nights and I wrote voraciously about the events . . . so I wouldn’t loose any of the details. That seemed important at the time. There seemed to be something there on a higher level that I did not yet understand, I only knew that it was there. Although it seemed then that I’d have it all etched indelibly in my mind forever, I knew the effects time has on the later recall of events.

I tried to capture every small detail I could about that week – the heartbreaking sound of his shortness of breath; the hospital admission; the hope for a turn-around; the visit with him in the hospital room. I didn’t know it at that moment, but that was to be the last time I saw Gilbert that he could speak to me, before they put him on a respirator. I now realize that the sad look in his eyes that evening as I left, was telling me good-bye. He knew he wouldn’t be going home, but he never mentioned it to me or to his mom. I wish I had stayed longer that evening. The next morning I was working at my desk. It was the first autumn I’d worked in the office with the bright, flame-yellow glow being reflected from that tree in front of the office. It was a spectacular sight against the background of the crystal turquoise-blue New Mexico sky. The phone rang and it was Gilbert’s mom calling to tell me that he was not doing well and had been transferred to ICU – and could I come. I finished what I could at the office in the next few minutes and asked my boss – also my mom – if I could go. Of course she said, "Go!" I didn’t know when, or what day, I’d be back. I told her I’d keep her informed. I got myself to the hospital as soon as I could. Little did I know, but I was not prepared for what came next. I’m not sure that anything can prepare you for such things.

Next, came the gut-wrenching sight of seeing him connected to the respirator and all the machines. I was stunned! The impact of seeing him like that was like a punch in the stomach. It stopped me in my tracks and practically punched the tears right out of me. I had to hold back the sound of my shock. They frequently have to give a person a paralytic medication to keep them from fighting a respirator. I had not been ready to see that. He could still give us some facial expressions, but that was about the only movement he could make. He could not blink, so they had to keep ointment in his eyes and keep them mostly closed. He could see we were there, through the slight remaining eye opening and through the haze of the ointment. There was probably also a haze of medication. I’m guessing that it was more the voice recognition that gave him the clues as to who was there. We talked to him and he responded with what facial expressions he could. I still hoped, in vain, that there might be improvement. As one might expect, his mother was there almost twenty-four hours a day, along with several aunts and cousins and his uncles. I spent the next several days and nights sitting on a stool, at his bedside, holding his hand. I went home only for about an hour each day to feed my cat, shower and change clothes. Since I had a key to his place, sometimes I went and fed his cats, other times his mother would do that and leave me in charge. Gilbert’s thirty-third birthday came and went.

Gradually, there was the realization that he was not going to get better . . . that he would not get to return to his house. Decisions had to be made. His mother made the decisions and asked me to tell the staff. Then, there were all the visitors – family, friends and coworkers from the television station where he had been a favorite videographer. It was a constant stream of people during visiting hours. I tried to catch his first-time visitors at the door to prepare them for what they’d see and what it was like. They seemed to appreciate this. I know Gilbert would have appreciated it, had he known. Understandably, his mother was devastated by the turn of events. He was her only child. Arrangements had to be made, and last rites were given. Her sisters helped her with all that. Witnessing his last rites felt like my heart was twisting in my chest and up into my throat. Later, I was allowed to bring in some of his favorite music CDs to play for him on his last day with us. I went to his house and picked out some CDs I thought he would like. I could tell he enjoyed them – his head moved slightly, to the beat. I kidded him that he was dancing with me, and he raised his eyebrows in what had become the closest thing to a smile he could manage. His face was relatively active with expressions that night, as I played the music and talked to him. As that night wore on, he began to have more trouble breathing on the respirator. His facial expressions faded . . . we think he slept. Those had been the last moments that we had seen cognitive interaction with him. We already knew that we would have to let him go the next morning. Words simply cannot express the impact of that realization.

At nine o’clock the next morning, with the doctor’s blessing, we had the staff remove Gilbert from the respirator. We knew that it would only be a few more minutes until he left us. His mother held him on his right side and I held him on the left. With my ear on his chest, I listened to his strong heart thump and his compromised lungs rasp as they struggled to take in air. I actually felt him leave before they pronounced him dead. But I could still hear his heart. Ultimately, he died in our arms at 9:10 am – according to the staff. I maintain that I felt him leave at about 9:06am. I swear that I felt his energy pass through me. It was an amazing, warm, and loving sensation in the middle of such anguish.

The next hours were, I thought, the very essence of the meaning of the word "surreal." His mother had to go to the mortuary to finish arrangements. Her sisters drove her. I was left in charge of making sure the morticians came for him and that any of his belongings were removed from the room. Several of the relatives wanted to stay. I had to gently coax the remaining relatives out of the room. His color cooled quickly. I assigned clearing of his personal effects to one of his cousins. One of Gilbert’s friends from work showed up. I stopped him just outside Gilbert’s room and informed him that Gilbert had passed away minutes ago. He was visibly shaken. I cleared out the last of the relatives and greeted the morticians. They were two very kind and gentle men. I left the room and closed the door so they could take him. They closed the blinds of the ICU room. A few minutes passed and when they opened the blinds again, the task was done. They opened the door to the room and they left with my beloved in a black bag on a gurney. The bed was empty. I felt a stabbing in my stomach, and a tightness in my throat. The staff politely moved in like efficient worker bees. They stripped the bed, and cleaned the room – like they did this routine thing everyday – which of course, they did. The world did not stop. The sun was shining outside. People continued their business here and there. Other than a few of his relatives who remained behind, no one seemed to know that my world had just stopped. I wondered how that was possible. Gradually, those of us left, floated through the hallways to the hospital exit. There was conversation, but I have no idea what was said or even if I contributed.

I walked out into the sunlight. The parking lot seemed huge. I knew my car was out there somewhere. Yet I seemed to walk right to it somehow. My car was parked next to Gilbert’s white Osmobile. Wow. He had adored that car. It would now be his mom’s car. I got in my car and sat there for what might have been half an hour. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I felt so incredibly lost. Who could possibly understand this? He was supposed to get better. Now my reason for being there was gone. After several months in and out of this place and now this last stand, I would not be coming back anymore. Was cancer always this cruel? I guessed that it probably was. After muttling through an endless half hour of lost thought, I decided to drive. People appeared to be in such a hurry – for what? They all seemed to have someplace they had to be. They were still rude. They were still careless. They were still doing. I was struck by the odd sensation that all of these people were going on about their business like nothing had happened – and of course for them, nothing had. But my world had just come crashing down and I really wasn’t sure how to survive such a thing. Where was I going? I was driving, but to where? I wasn’t even sure. I realized that I really had not slept in five days (other than a few minutes here & there of dozing). I drove home. The world seemed so different. I remember thinking of a song from the late 50s or early 60s, "End of the World." The singer expressed her puzzlement, "Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? It ended when he said goodbye." Of course, Gilbert didn’t get to say goodbye. He didn’t even want to leave. Now he was gone in the most final sense that humans tend to think. Then again, that’s where the spirituality part comes in – I knew he was only "gone" in a physical sense. So what will all this stuff be like? Will I hear him? Lost in thought and contemplation – I drove and I suppose that Angels managed to get me home to the apartment where I lived.

I wandered through my apartment for a while. I finally crashed on my bed and slept. I probably slept for three or four hours. When I awoke, it took a minute, but soon I remembered what had happened and that it had not been a bad dream. I looked outside. Clouds and wind were moving in. That evening, it rained. It rained for the next few days – off and on. I felt a bit comforted that the weather was helping me cry. The next morning, I decided to try going back to work – what else was I going to do? Sit around by myself and cry? What good would that do? None. That morning, I walked out of my apartment door onto my balcony. I had various potted plants, herbs and flowers on my balcony. There had been a freeze a couple of nights prior, and most of them had faded for the season. Oddly, there was one tropical plant remaining, as if it had one last mission. One of my hibiscus plants – not the pink one, but the red one that always bloomed away from the door – was still active. As I locked the door and turned to leave for work, I saw that particular hibiscus had one last beautiful red blossom on it. Red had been Gilbert’s favorite color. The bloom was facing my front door. It had never bloomed in that direction before that day. It felt like a message: "Hello Love. Here is a red flower for you. Everything will be ok and you will be fine."

The next few days were a blur of feeling lost, going back to work for a day, making phone calls, attending his rosary and his funeral. The day of Gilbert’s funeral, I had driven the only car I had, my old 1989 Plymouth Accord. I left it parked at the church. I had ridden in the limousine with Gilbert’s mother and aunts to the cemetery. Once there, the clouds broke and the rain cleared. From the cemetery, we had gone to one of his aunt’s houses, where the family gathered for the day. When I got back to my car later that afternoon, my car would barely start. I managed to get it home, but it kept dying all the way. Once I got it home, it would no longer start. My car died the day we buried Gilbert. How strange. My dad lent me his mini van to get me around until we could find a better solution a few weeks later.

Those memories and more – they were all I seemed to have left of Gilbert. Perhaps that was why I clung to all those details as I so feverishly wrote them out each night. . . so I would not loose touch with him. Perhaps sometime, I’ll write a more detailed account of how we met and what followed. For now, I’m grateful that I journaled about those difficult events while they were fresh. It was the last clear set of memories that I had for a while. When I returned to my office on November 19^th, 2001, the tree out in front had lost all of its annual parade of brilliant yellow leaves, thus marking the advance of winter.

The next year was a fog in my mind. I barely remember it, except for bits and pieces here and there. I remember that I didn’t recall any of my dreams for several months. I knew I had dreamed, but I couldn’t recall them, which was unusual for me. I continued to keep a journal and that would be the only way I could look back and recall much of the 2001 holiday season or most of 2002. Thank goodness for that journal, as there were many things I began to learn and become aware of over the next few months that would be important to my spiritual growth. Interesting things. I do remember that just as I was beginning to make some emotional progress, my grandfather became ill, required surgery and then died a month later. That set me back a bit, but it was somewhat like learning the same lesson all over again only with a valuable new twist or perspective.

That year, I know I was a mess. I know that ordinary, everyday things became monumental tasks that I rarely had the energy or wherewithal to complete. I know that usually simple things like going to the bank of mailboxes to retrieve my mail were almost impossible for me, from an emotional standpoint. I did not process a lot of my mail in a timely fashion and later on, that got me into a bit of financial trouble. But at that time, I couldn’t fathom those kinds of consequences. It felt like my world had come to an end and I wondered how the sun kept rising every morning! I think that I honestly didn’t believe that I’d live through it and eventually petty things like the mail wouldn’t matter. I was doing well to get up in the mornings, get ready for work, get myself to work, and get through the work day and get myself home again. Anything more than that, was gravy. All the days pretty much ran together. If I had ever, during that year, been wearing unmatched shoes, I probably would not have discovered it on my own. One day appeared much like all the others . . . most involved a lot of tears – usually in the privacy of my home. I became a master at disguising cry-puffed eyes with artfully applied eyeliner. I suppose my goal that year was to get through each day somehow and see another day . . . and to eventually get through a day without tears. Apparently unbeknownst to me, I put on a fairly good act. Amazingly, most people did not seem to notice my diminished functioning capacity. I suppose that is frequently the way of things. It took about nine or ten months before I got through a day without any tears.

As November of 2002 brought the bright, flame-yellow leaves back to that tree out in front of the office, I had the second most difficult time of the year. I was amazed at how a simple and beautiful visual cue could catapult one’s mood. Although I’m sure it was much more than just the sight of the changing colors . . . the anniversary was more difficult than I’d anticipated. The tree didn’t forget, and apparently neither would I – never again. But shortly after the leaves were gone once more, I gradually became better able to function. I began to see evidence of the healing progress and my life returning to me. That holiday season was better than the year before. The second year I thought would be much better. But when I least expected it, the sad memories, anger about the loss, and various feelings would pounce on me from out of some dark place and take hold of me for a day or two. But it would pass. I was quite surprised at how sudden and inconsiderate those episodes were. But that also gradually diminished. In November of 2003, on what would have been Gilbert’s thirty-fifth birthday, I ended up making an offer on a house and won the bid. I had not planned the timing that way. It just worked out like that . . . or did it? I still have to smile about the "coincidence" of it. With some assistance, I went on to purchase that house, where I now reside. Each year, the healing progresses a little more. Each year, the anniversary week has been difficult, but each year becomes a little easier.

Now it’s November, and the leaves turn again . . .

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