A Death & A Deliverance - Part VI

The first time I met Jinny, I couldn’t stand her. She was the gushy, chatty girlfriend of my son, Julian, and she walked around radiating almost unbearable positive energy despite the fact that, at 32 years old, she was terminally ill. It was almost too late before I began to see her in a different light. 

THIS IS PART 6 of a SEVEN-PART STORY

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

In another part of the hospital, my daughter, Gabi, was having a baby. Her situation was complicated, and I’m not at liberty to talk about it here, but the baby was mixed race, a bit of a mystery baby since we weren’t sure of the sex or color. I wasn’t in the room with her when her daughter was born. The first glimpse I had was of a pink-white little girl with a ton of black, curly hair. She was gorgeous and I fell instantly in love with her. I itched to pick her up. For the second half of the pregnancy, the baby had ridden high beneath Gabi’s ribs, a round, compact nugget, and now here she was, staring at us out of huge black eyes, wondering what the hell this new, brightly-lit place was. The labor had been fairly easy. When the nurse put the baby in Gabi’s arms, she held her like a pro, a big happy smile of joy creasing her tired face. It took me back to Gabi’s birth, which had been very fast (27 minutes hard labor) and had occurred almost entirely in the back seat of the car, me squeezing my legs together tightly to keep the baby from sliding out. But Gabi had had an epidural and experienced very little pain.

Meanwhile, Jinny was still in the hospital and I’d visit Gabi and the new baby in the maternity ward and then take the elevator to the seventh floor where Jinny was. It was a constant switch of emotions – sheer headiness when I was with the baby; worry and anxiety when I was with Jinny. And I had reason to worry. Around the time Gabi gave birth, Jinny fell into a coma.

There was nothing the doctors could do. She was on a one-way trip to the end place none of us could bear to talk about.

To make matters worse, my dog was dying, my beloved, majestic Newfoundland who’d become part of my soul. (As it turned out, she died on the same day as Jinny.) With no way to help her, Jinny was sent home to hospice.

And there she lay in state. A hospital bed was placed in the living room. In her softest nightie, Jinny was installed in the bed, eyes closed, face peeking over the covers as the room began to fill with people.

Next: Read A Death & A Deliverance, Part 7 >>