by Diane Moody
After my mind and heart came to terms with it all, I ducked in the restroom to freshen myself after this latest tear-fest, then kept myself busy the rest of the morning with patient visits. I purposefully left Mr. Wilcox for last, not sure I was up to anymore angst this morning. He seemed slightly better after receiving the treatment and medications he needed. His color was much better and he seemed more like himself, though still weak.
I noticed an oversized book over on the wall-to-wall window sill. “What’s this?” I asked, making my way around his bed. The title read My Life on the Line. I had to bite back the irony of those words, but it was obviously a scrapbook of his career as a railroad engineer. And I knew immediately how to cheer Mr. Wilcox up.
I pulled up a chair close to his bed and took a seat. “I’m all done with my visits this morning, Mr. Wilcox. Any chance I could twist your arm into telling me all about your book here?”
Cheapest, fastest-working meds on the planet if that smile is any indication. An hour and a half later, he was the happiest camper on the floor, and I’d never felt so gratified.
When I went back downstairs for lunch, I stopped by the office first and noticed Mrs. B had put a sign on our note board:
HOSTESS MEETING AT 2:00 P.M.
CONFERENCE ROOM B
ATTENDANCE MANDATORY
Our boss had been subdued for weeks and hadn’t interacted more than necessary with any of us for some time. Curiosity took away my appetite, but I forced down a few bites. In the cafeteria, the girls and I had a horrible feeling this meeting wasn’t about an office picnic.
We were right.
“Thank you for coming, ladies,” she began, after we all arrived. “I have some rather unfortunate news to tell you, but it’s not really going to be much of a surprise, I’m afraid.”
The tuna in the salad I had just eaten did a triple spin off the high dive.
“Today is your official two week notice of dismissal.”
A collective groan filled the room.
“Our program will cease to exist in two weeks. You will each receive a severance check in your final paycheck. And I would be most happy to write a letter of recommendation for you as you pursue other employment.”
She took off her glasses and gently wiped the outer edges of her eyes with a handkerchief. “I suppose it was inevitable, as the economy has continued on a downslide. Even a grand hospital such as ours must cut corners in times like these.”
The side door opened and in walked Dr. Grieve, our president. We all sat a little straighter as he entered, all of us trying to maintain our composure.
“Ladies, Dr. Grieve would like to say a few words to you.” Mrs. Baker motioned for him to go ahead as she stepped back against the wall.
“Ladies, no one is more disappointed than I am at the news Virginia has just shared with you. As you are all aware, the hostess program was one of my proudest achievements during my tenure here at Baptist. You have been the welcoming face to all our patients, offering them an extra portion of kindness and service during their stay. I was never so proud as the first time your predecessors made their rounds making our hospital ‘more hospitable,’ if you will, by offering a smiling face, a cheerful message of service, and a willingness to do those little things that told our patients we wanted to make their stay as pleasant as possible.
“I was proud then, and I’m proud today. I’m proud of each and every one of you and all your accomplishments. And that’s why it’s especially hard for me to have to close down something I feel so strongly about. But these are difficult days in our hospital, our city, and our country. We’ve had to make some painful decisions, not the least of which—at least for me—is the one that concerns each of you.
“As you know, I’m stepping down soon to begin my retirement. I’ve had a wonderful life, especially while here at the helm of this great institution. But it’s time for me to move on and spend as much time as God sees fit to give me with my wife, my children, and my grandchildren. Most of you, on the other hand, are at the beginning of your careers. And this is not the way I’d hoped to see you leave us. That said, I trust God will help each and every one of you find the job He has for you. A job that will take you closer to your dreams, whatever they may be. Who knows but what a future nurse or doctor or chaplain or hospital administrator is sitting in this room. Perhaps your time here at Baptist has sparked an interest in such a career. I’d like nothing more.
“And so I bid you farewell, with my utmost thanks. Thank you for your service here at Baptist, thank you for the way you made me so proud, and thank you for the blessing you’ve been to each and every patient you visited.” He paused, held his fist to his mouth, then seemed to clear his throat. He blinked away tears, held up his hand, and with a graveled voice said, “God bless you.”
As the door closed behind him, we all broke out the tissues. Mrs. B wiped her eyes again, folding and refolding her handkerchief. When she was able, she continued. “Girls, tomorrow morning when you come in, we’ll meet briefly to discuss how to wind down our work here, how to inform your floor staff, that sort of thing. In the meantime, I would like to invite you all to be my guests a week from Thursday, at Top of the 100, the revolving restaurant atop the Union Planters building downtown for a final dinner together and a chance to celebrate the times we’ve shared.”
I couldn’t help but think . . . our office picnic had become the last supper.
Chapter 41
As we left the conference room, I think we all felt numb. I know I did. You’d think we’d be moaning and groaning about the situation, or at the very least, ranting to some degree about what the heck we’d all do. Instead, an unusual eerie silence surrounded us. Mrs. Baker stayed out of the office. I can only assume she was avoiding us—not because she didn’t care, but because she hated what she just told us, hated the predicament, and maybe even hated the thought of saying goodbye in the very near future. I couldn’t blame her for disappearing for a while. It was all so surreal.
I looked at my watch—2:30. I tried to reach Tucker, still on his shift, but I was told he was with a patient in the ER, so I decided to go back up to Jimmy’s room. I just needed someone to talk to. I needed my daddy.
Dad was working a crossword puzzle and my brother was still lights out. Dad came back out in the hall with me and we found a couple of chairs. I unloaded about my crazy day. He was such an amazing father, always knowing when I just needed to talk things out.
When I finished, he pulled me into a side hug and said, “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry, though I have no doubt in my mind that you can do anything you set your mind on. But my goodness, when it rains it pours, doesn’t it? What a week it’s been. Your brother’s accident, you got engaged, your friend’s about to undergo a heart transplant—and now this.”
“I know. Weird, isn’t it? The highs and lows are about to give me whiplash. Makes you wonder, what’s next?”
What’s next . . .
No sooner had those words left my mouth, than I heard myself paged. When I called the operator, she connected me to Sandra in the hostess office.
“Shelby! OH MY GOSH, Shelby, have you heard?” She sounded out of breath and more than a little hyper.
“No, what’s going on?”
“Elvis! It’s all over the news. They’re saying he’s dead!”
“WHAT?” I didn’t mean to shout, and immediately looked around, hoping it wasn’t as loud as I thought. Clearly it was. Dad rushed over to my side, his expression asking what was wrong. “Who’s saying he’s dead?” I asked more quietly.
“Supposedly they’re bringing him here to Baptist by ambulance right now. Some reports on the radio are saying he’s dead. Others say they’re still trying to resuscitate him. I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it! Oh Shelby, meet me in the Union lobby so we can see what’s going on. Hurry!”
I told Dad what Sandra had said, gave him a hug, then ran down the hall and impatiently pressed the down button by the elevators. It was taking forever so I opte
d for the stairs, taking them as fast as I could in my wedged heels.
When I pushed open the door on One, it hit me hard.
I could physically feel it. Something was in the air . . .
Ask anyone who was there that day and they’ll tell you. The air literally crackled with electricity. As if a nearby transformer had blown and all of us could feel the hairs lift off our arms, our necks. The Union Avenue lobby quickly filled as employees rushed to see for themselves. Their questions, hushed but urgent.
Is it true? Please tell me it’s not true!
Surely it’s just a rumor?
Elvis Presley . . . our Elvis . . . dead?!
Word had spread like a Tennessee wildfire throughout the hospital . . . an ambulance carrying the King of Rock ‘n Roll was racing through the streets of Memphis from Graceland to “his” hospital, flanked by police cars and motorcycle cops.
Elvis? Dead? How can that be?
I spotted Sandra immediately and rushed to her side. She grabbed my hand in a death-lock grip with both of hers. We held our ground there by that expansive wall of windows overlooking the Emergency Room bay. I couldn’t breathe, and except for an occasional whisper or whimper, no one else seemed to be breathing either. Doctors, nurses, bookkeepers, administrators, gift shop clerks, cafeteria workers, visitors, even a patient or two—some in wheelchairs pushed by family members—and most of my own coworkers . . . we all stood there. Waiting, hoping, praying.
Shrouded in silent grief, we waited for him to arrive, fearing the worst.
Don’t ask me why, but just then I looked up at the clock on the wall—2:56. Then flashing lights suddenly rounded the corner as a long line of emergency vehicles made the final stretch of the ER entry. As the ambulance rolled into sight, I felt a tear slip down my cheek, then another. I felt Sandra’s arm slip around my waist, pulling me closer. I felt someone else’s arm drape over my shoulder. In moments, the girls were all around us, drawing even closer as the crowd behind us pushed for a better view. I could hear Sandra’s whispered prayers in her native tongue. And then I caught a waft of Mrs. Baker’s familiar cologne and heard her utter, “Oh, dear Lord . . .”
I knew it wasn’t possible, but at that precise moment, the whole scene seemed to slip into slow motion. The incessant flash of cameras created a surreal landscape of strange strobe-like movements as people rushed across the lawn below us toward the ER. The barrage of flashing red lights bounced off glass-covered medical buildings as the wailing sirens echoed in that valley of concrete and glass.
And then the sirens went silent . . . all of them, leaving an eerie, foreboding hush in their wake.
Oh God, please don’t let Elvis die . . .
We waited and waited. The halls and lobbies of BMH filled to near-capacity. Rumors ran wild. I thought I would lose my mind. After an hour with no validation as to what was going on in that ER, I looked up and saw Tucker threading his way through the crowd toward me. When our eyes met, he waved me toward him. I grabbed Sandra’s hand and we slipped through the pack of onlookers.
As we neared him, he held out his arms, beckoning me to that safe place I’d come to cherish most. I quickly melted into his embrace, desperately needing some sort of stability in the madness of this moment.
“Tucker, what have you heard?”
“I was there when they brought him in.”
“You were there?” Sandra shrieked, her hands grasping his arm.
“Shhh, c’mon. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.” He pulled us to a corner as far away as we could get from everyone else. He looked around to make sure we were out of earshot.
“Is it true?” I asked, clutching onto him.
“Is he dead?” Sandra whimpered.
He dropped his head, then looked back up. “I’m afraid so.”
Sandra let out an unexpected cry, and Tucker quickly brought her under his other arm. “Shhh, we need to keep this under wraps until an official announcement is released. Dr. Nichopoulos is on his way to Graceland to tell Elvis’s dad. After that takes place, they’ll go public.”
“What happened?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“Well, that remains to be seen. Apparently he was discovered in his bathroom unconscious. Or so they said. From what we could tell, he’d been gone for quite a while by the time they got him to the emergency room. Livor mortis had clearly set in—”
“Rigor mortis?” Sandra asked.
“No, livor mortis. It’s a purple skin coloration. If it doesn’t blanch out when you press your finger against it—meaning, it remains purple—that’s a sign that the patient has been dead for two or more hours. Plus, when you factor in that the body was also stiff—indicating an onset of rigor mortis, which you’re obviously familiar with—he was obviously dead long before he arrived here.”
“How horrible,” I said.
“In fact, one of the nurses on the Harvey team verbalized what we all were thinking when she asked why in the world we were working on a corpse. He was visibly blue and unresponsive. Someone told her, ‘Because it’s Elvis.’ Like most of us, she hadn’t recognized him. Honestly, I had no idea it was him. He was extremely bloated and like I said, very, very blue.”
Can this really be happening? This kind-hearted man I met only a few weeks ago—now dead? First Dr. Love, now Elvis? No matter what Tucker said, I just couldn’t want to believe it.
We all lingered at the hospital, hoping against hope there had been some bizarre mistake. People reminisced, others couldn’t stop crying, but none of us wanted to believe it. We kept hearing reports that the entire section of town near Graceland had come to a standstill because of all the traffic. Masses of people were gathering there as they had here, all of them hoping it was just a sick, elaborate hoax.
I had lots of questions too. I peppered Tucker with them over and over until he asked me to stop. His long shift was finally over and he just wanted to go home and get some sleep. Sandra and Trevor left, as did the rest of the girls in my office. But I didn’t want to go home yet. I wanted to spend some time with my family up in Jimmy’s room.
Mom and Dad were both there, Mom looking much more rested, but terribly sad. She’d always loved Elvis, having met him several times at Dad’s dealership. She had every one of his albums and played them constantly, especially when we were kids. It finally dawned on me—maybe that’s why I wasn’t a big Elvis fan growing up. I’d heard one too many tunes by the King when I was younger.
But that all changed that day in the prayer room. I’d met the man, not the image. And he couldn’t have been kinder. His heartfelt despair over Dr. Love’s imminent passing had drawn out that beautiful, unforgettable hymn, quietly sung in the softly lit prayer room.
They’d called his time of death at 3:30. According to the Shelby County medical examiner, the cause of death was listed as heart failure—which he announced before the autopsy. Others speculated that Elvis had died from a drug overdose. Those reports broke my heart. We all knew he’d had problems for years, which explained so many of those weeks he’d stay with us at Baptist, trying to overcome those afflictions. But it seemed grotesquely wrong for reporters to jump to conclusions when no autopsy had yet been performed.
Maybe we were just naїve, but we were surprised at the vastness of the television coverage. When local news finally gave way to the networks, we found ourselves glued to the set in Jimmy’s room, watching Chet Huntley and David Brinkley detail the news coming out of Memphis. As Mom helped Jimmy try to eat a few bites of red Jell-O and applesauce, we listened to the animated conversation of a young reporter named Geraldo Rivera. He seemed overly agitated about the whole situation, making all sorts of wild speculations about what went on in that bathroom at Graceland, and even more so, in Trauma Room 2 in Baptist’s ER. So much misinformation seemed to be flying all over Memphis, and across the world, for that matter. After a while, we grew weary of it all and turned off the set. I said my goodbyes, promising to see them again in the morning.
In the days t
hat followed, the entire spectacle surrounding the death of Elvis Presley warped out of control. Everyone was stunned to hear that his body was already lying in state at Graceland the next day. The next day. How could they have possibly pulled that together so fast? Thousands lined Elvis Presley Boulevard hoping to pay their respects. It was estimated that more than 80,000 people filed by that open casket.
I found it all very distasteful. Why an open coffin for complete strangers to stare and gawk over? It seemed like more of a staged event for curiosity seekers than an opportunity for genuine fans to pay tribute to a beloved entertainer. The most devoted of fans took it the hardest, many collapsing and fainting after hysterical outbursts. I couldn’t imagine being over there in all that chaos, especially in the sweltering 94-degree heat. Yet one of the nurses on my floor later told me she’d gone with her husband, waiting in line more than nine hours for one last look at her beloved Elvis.
“I’m so sorry I went, Shelby. The body in that casket didn’t look a thing like Elvis. It looked like one of those figures at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Nothing looked right. And now I’ll forever have that image locked in my brain instead of the Elvis I loved.”
I found it equally baffling that the funeral took place the very next day on August 18th. How on earth had they been able to arrange a funeral of that magnitude in less than 36 hours? A small funeral with only 200 invited guests was held in the living room at Graceland. Floral arrangements blanketed the entire front lawn of the mansion. Local florists had been inundated with orders from friends and fans around the world.
Later, television coverage showed the 17 white limousines following the hearse with Elvis’s casket on the drive over to the cemetery. Daddy jumped up, pointing to a silver Cadillac leading the procession ahead of the hearse shown on television. My dad choked up and couldn’t speak. Even Cadillac Jack was grieving.
Elvis was laid to rest next to his mother at Forest Hill Cemetery. Eleven days later three men broke into the cemetery and tried to steal his casket. Charges were later dropped when they admitted they were just trying to prove it was an empty casket, convinced Elvis was still alive. Elvis’s dad, Vernon, would later have both Elvis and his mother moved to Meditation Garden at Graceland.