Goodbye, Ethel.
Ethel Gibbs passed away this morning.
I've written about her before, here and here and here and here (caution: comment links on older posts do not work).
She turned 102 last month.
I visited three times after she'd been laid up in a hospice with a bruised leg. The first two times, she was lively and chatty, although I think she was kinder to her visitors than her caregivers. ("She loves men," one of those caregivers said, a bit ruefully, as I walked in.)
The third time I visited her was the day of her fourth stroke. It took me a while to realize her condition, and a while longer to understand that it had changed since the last time the hospice workers had checked on her. She couldn't speak well, but they had pointed me to her matter-of-factly. I assumed everything that could be done for her was being done.
As the hospice workers and I finally realized something was wrong, I tried to keep talking until the ambulance arrived.
I told her everything I could about my life and the world around us, the world she always took such an interest in. But we only had one meaningful exchange that day, if you can call it meaningful:
"Ethel, can you hear me?"
[with difficulty] "I reear oo, T."
She took hold of my arm a couple of times as the paramedics arrived. Slurring unintelligibly.
Trying to tell me something.
I only saw her once after that, in the hospital bed. The TV was on and turned to Cops, of all things. She was fast asleep and stayed that way. I couldn't bear to wake her.
Her family saw to it that she died at home in bed, not in a hospital. I have faith that this made her happy. It was always the way she wanted to go, surrounded by loving family. She never regained the power of speech, but my parents visited her four days ago and said that she seemed to understand them.
One hundred years and more.
Life is valuable no matter how much of it you have.
I've written about her before, here and here and here and here (caution: comment links on older posts do not work).
She turned 102 last month.
I visited three times after she'd been laid up in a hospice with a bruised leg. The first two times, she was lively and chatty, although I think she was kinder to her visitors than her caregivers. ("She loves men," one of those caregivers said, a bit ruefully, as I walked in.)
The third time I visited her was the day of her fourth stroke. It took me a while to realize her condition, and a while longer to understand that it had changed since the last time the hospice workers had checked on her. She couldn't speak well, but they had pointed me to her matter-of-factly. I assumed everything that could be done for her was being done.
As the hospice workers and I finally realized something was wrong, I tried to keep talking until the ambulance arrived.
I told her everything I could about my life and the world around us, the world she always took such an interest in. But we only had one meaningful exchange that day, if you can call it meaningful:
"Ethel, can you hear me?"
[with difficulty] "I reear oo, T."
She took hold of my arm a couple of times as the paramedics arrived. Slurring unintelligibly.
Trying to tell me something.
I only saw her once after that, in the hospital bed. The TV was on and turned to Cops, of all things. She was fast asleep and stayed that way. I couldn't bear to wake her.
Her family saw to it that she died at home in bed, not in a hospital. I have faith that this made her happy. It was always the way she wanted to go, surrounded by loving family. She never regained the power of speech, but my parents visited her four days ago and said that she seemed to understand them.
One hundred years and more.
Life is valuable no matter how much of it you have.
Labels: Personal
Posted at
3:14 PM
4 Comments:
Sorry for your loss, bro.
I am sorry for your loss. She sounds remarkable, though I'm not sure I envy the task of explaining Ranma 1/2 to a centigenarian...
Sorry to hear it, T. I do recall your earlier posts about her, and she sounded impressive.
Aww, that's very sad - Ethel was a remarkable woman. I was always amazed that a woman over the age of 100 took an interest in video games.
I'm glad she went peacefully.
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