Final Salute

We were high school sweethearts. He happened to call me one Sunday afternoon when I was having a particularly hard time. I was in my early 30s living in the middle of Manhattan. It would seem that I had it all — good job, nice apartment. But I was alone and the Big Apple can be a really lonely place. Then Lee called. And we talked for hours. Couple of months later, I got on a plane and flew out to see him. We had a small, winter wedding in Loveland in 1984, his 8-year-old daughter, Laura our only attendant. I’d love to say we lived happily ever after but we separated in 2001. We stayed friends because of our daughter and then because of our grandkids. We did every birthday and holiday together and we continued to respect and cherish each other. Cancer moved slowly into our lives. Lee at first refused to see a doctor. He believed they would inevitably find something and then make him do things he didn’t want to do. He could be very stubborn. Laura and I kept after him and with his mother weighing in, he finally agreed to go to the VA where they discovered lung cancer. He decided not to fight this awful disease beyond radiation. He had a couple of treatments but refused chemo. Living in Denver then he was helping Laura with the grandkids when she was working. That ended as he got sicker — now it was “Grampy” who needed caring for. Lee and I entered into a phase of acceptance which brought a special kind of freedom. For me, it was freeing to let go of my practice of trying to control everything. For the first time in many years all I had to do was appreciate him and walk beside him. As the pain got worse, the drugs got stronger. At one point he asked me why he was so high. I told him it could be the morphine or the pot he was still smoking or any of the other heavy drugs he was taking now. We talked about God, life, the after-life. There was nothing out of bounds. We laughed really hard, much as we had when we were in high school, and shared stories of the things we’d done and experienced together. Of course, I was frightened and sad about the inevitable but it was also wonderful to be connecting again in this deep way at a very real moment of time. Then Lee started having visions. “Why are we at the Statue of Liberty?” he asked me one evening. Having worked for Hospice, I knew those who are dying become less interested in the outside world and start looking into what comes next. Were his visions the act of starting to look ahead or were they hallucinations from oxygen deprivation, dehydration, medication or the weed? I will never know but have thought a great deal about his visions and our conversations since he died. Soon Lee was needing much more care than Laura or I could give him. Denver Hospice was called in round-the-clock. Then came the time when even home care wasn’t enough and it was soon time for him to move from his apartment. A room opened up in the hospice unit of the Veteran’s Hospital in Denver and he moved in. In less than a week, I got a call that his breathing was becoming erratic and they expected he wouldn’t last through the night. I called Laura and she rushed to the VA, arriving before me. I flew down I-25 but by the time I arrived from Estes he had already died and was cool to the touch. The VA staff told us they traditionally have a small ceremony, called the Final Salute with the other veterans in hospice care. The social worker brought out a small, well-worn speaker system and announced the service. All the men, most in pajamas and robes, came out and stood by the doors to their rooms in a kind of half circle with the nurse’s station in the middle. Reciting Lee’s Viet Nam service record, the social worker also listed his medals. She accidentally used his middle name of Michael instead of his first name which caused Laura and I a brief moment of giggling. Soon the Star Spangled Banner crackled out of the speakers, all the men saluted, and holding each other’s hands, Laura and I walked behind the gurney holding Lee’s body, down a hall to a set of double doors. Then silence while they wheeled him out of the hospice unit. We had two more ceremonies, one for family at the home where Lee and I had lived together and where my grandchildren, ages 7 and 9 read their ‘grandfather poems’ and one at Fort Logan complete with a folded flag, taps and rifle shots. It is the simple Final Salute at the VA that really stays with me. The ceremony that makes me smile and remember my daughter standing by my side, was the one where they called Lee, Michael. That ceremony was our unexpected gift.