Dicing with death

I think I'm finally getting in to this whole nursing thing.

I've finally met my mentor, after 3 weeks of being left to wander alone like the waif of a student that I am, latching on to who ever will have me for the duration of the shift.
And it turns out she's actually really nice. I know I'm gonna learn a lot from her, which makes the remaining 7 week hospital stint look a lot brighter.

Anyway, more to the point of my title, I dealt with my first death the other night. The woman was elderly; she died with her eyes closed. This is a blessing, because usually folk die with their eyes wide or semi open, which is just plain freaky. I don't think I could deal with a body if it stared at me with a lifeless gaze, peering out at me from glassy eyeballs half-hidden beneath crinkled lids. Anyway, enough overly-descriptive talk.
A young nurse and myself entered the room together, and for a second a pang of pity passed through me. I had known the patient well enough when she was alive - I had helped her on a couple of occasions, and she had always been nice and patient, and very chatty. Funny too. So to see her lying there, half expecting her eyelashes to flutter or her chest to rise with a breath, but seeing nothing of life about her, was slightly heart-wrenching.
The moment passed and I walked over to her side. I rested a hand on her arm. She was slightly cold to touch, and as I gazed at her face I noticed how pale she had become. All of her flesh was ashen - very deathly - and I saw that the underside of her arm was a mottled purple colour. Now, there is a medical term for that, when all the blood rushes to the underside of the body due to the pull of gravity and the fact that there's no longer a heart to keep it moving round the system. But I can't remember it.
We got to work, cleaning her body. My eyes barely left her face. She wore such a blank expression, yet it seemed to be one of peace. Finally, after all the pain she had suffered, she had found rest.

It makes you wonder what happens after death; if there's an afterlife, or if that's it, nothing, just blackness, which you wouldn't realise anyway cos your mind wouldn't be awake so you wouldn't be aware of it. Or would you? Because when you think about it, when you come round after you've fainted, you remember the blackness kinda fading, as you open your eyes to the world again. At least, that's what I remember after my fainting episode. And you remember the exact point when everything goes black. So maybe, without realising it, you are aware of the blackness, because you're aware of it at the beginning and at the end, and therefore you must remember the middle of it, cos when you wake up, you remember it being black. So is that what dying is like? You're just constantly stuck in a black state - a black hole? And yet... surely that can't just be it. Living your whole life, doing the things you want to and striving to make a name for yourself, and what happens? You end up in the dark. Surely your soul doesn't reach this standstill and stay there forever - for infinity - cos there's nothing like death to stop that sensation? Surely you must live on, whether it be as a supernatural being, or in another living form, like reincarnation.
It's thinking like that which turns you crazy.

So off this tangent, and back on track.
We rolled her onto her side to wash her back. Her arm flopped like that of a rag doll, landing with a gentle thud onto the air-filled mattress. Despite knowing that there was no strength in her to move anymore, I still expected her to pull away, or stop herself from rolling to far. But there was just nothing.

The nurse accompanying me told me that people deal with these 'last offices' in different ways. Her personal coping strategy was to speak to the person as she went, treating them as if they were alive and could hear everything she was saying. At first I thought this would be difficult; maybe like playing make-believe with a doll. But after a while, I found myself talking to the patient, telling her what I was gonna do next, asking her to roll towards me or telling her to lift an arm as I picked it up myself and washed it gently. I inwardly laughed at myself, but at the same time, I drew comfort from this odd addition to the final ritual which the hospital held for this woman.
We dressed her in a theatre gown - she had no special nightdress for leaving her ward room in - and cocooned her in a white blanket, wrapping her up as though she were a gift, as my fellow nurse had said. I'm not immensely religious these days - in fact, I'm almost cynical about it now - but I almost shocked myself when I thought tenderly that we wrapped her up like a gift for God. If there is a God up there, I hope he gets it, first class delivery, cos really this woman deserves nothing else than to be an angel.

We sealed her in a white body bag, with label attached like an identity card. My writing remains on the name tag that we secured around her wrist. Slightly freaky thought really, that my writing blemishes a dead person's body.
Then, I realised it was eight o'clock, and therefore home time.
And that was it - business finished, now let's forget about it and go home for supper.
I write this now, because it's a form of reflection on my part. At the time - and this may sound twisted - I was chuffed because it meant another box ticked in the nursing skills passport. Another story to add to the evidence list in my portfolio.
But now, I think about this and realise actually what a deep experience it is, to be the people to prepare her for her long journey to the underworld, to some sort of extent. I'm not mentally scarred by this event - my mentor said it was good to be introduced to this kind of thing early - but nor am I going to forget it in a hurry. It was a good experience; a learning curve in technique, skill and professionalism, and also in facing up to the inevitable which lies in wait for all of us.
Death is a big part of life - a very big part which we must all deal with at some point or another. I say I won't forget it in a hurry, but neither will the family she has left behind. And I know that both myself and her family will have to dance with death again at another point, hopefully in the very, very, very distant future.