Colors of Goodbye

by September Vaudrey

  Like a blind person using her fingers to see, I keep touching, touching, touching. I touch her lips. I run a fingertip down each eyelid, as I did countless times in the hospital. Her eyes are shut at last, her long lashes lying in repose.

  I stroke her cheek, her forehead, her hair. I touch the incision on her scalp from the burr hole surgery—a thin red line with a few black spider-leg stitches. I kiss the cut as I have kissed countless other bumps and scratches on her over the past nineteen years. I kiss it again and again. Katie, honey, I am so sorry.

  A white sheet covers her legs. I yank it back. Underneath, her skirt, leggings, and boots leave no skin exposed—but her legs don’t look . . . natural. I adjust them to lie more comfortably, then tuck the sheet back in its place and look again at my daughter’s face.

  I have grossly underestimated today’s task. I shudder and another wave of nausea sweeps over me. What was I thinking? Who do I think I am? This experience is much more horrible than I ever imagined. I cup Katie’s shoulders in my hands, draw myself near to her, lay my head on her chest, and sob.

  Life is not about our bodies. There is a big difference between being brain-dead and being dead dead. I assumed a dead Katie would look roughly the same as a comatose Katie. Wrong! The body lying in front of me is as different from the beautiful girl in the hospital room as an empty cocoon is from the butterfly that once inhabited it. The shell is hers, but Katie has flown. That vision from the accident plays again in my mind—Katie being scooped up into the arms of Jesus and soaring through the trees—utter joy on her face and radiance in her eyes. That was Katie. This is nothing but her vacated cocoon.

  I don’t know how many minutes have passed as I stand there, bent over my daughter, crying, but suddenly I remember Sandy. How long has she been waiting? I cannot put Sandy through this, I realize. I cannot let her see Katie like this. Partly, I am embarrassed for Katie—I don’t want anyone to see her in this condition. Partly, I want to protect my sweet friend.

  Tears and snot wetting my face, I rush toward the door and yank it open. “Sandy—never mind! I don’t want you to go in there!” I say. “It’s awful. She looks awful. It is so much worse than I imagined. Thank you for being so willing to help, but just wait out here. I’ll do her makeup myself, and then we’ll go. Give me the bags. I don’t want you to see. It’s horrible, horrible.” I wipe my face with my sleeve.

  Sandy stands and wraps me up in her arms. She holds me for a few brief seconds, and then she steps back and plants her hands firmly on my shoulders, looking me straight in the eye.

  “You are not doing this alone,” she says, flecks of iron in her lilting voice. “I will be fine. I can handle it. You are not going back into that room by yourself. I am going with you, and we are going to make Katie look as cute as possible. We are doing this together. And that’s all there is to it.”

  She picks up one of the sacks and thrusts it into my arms. She grabs the other sack and nods toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  I blink, turn, and follow her into the room.

  “Well, we have our work cut out for us,” Sandy agrees upon seeing Katie. She wipes her eyes. Then we dive in. We pull a podium over and set up an art station. And for the next ninety minutes, we partner together. We apply Katie’s makeup, style her hair, add her jewelry, place her pillow under her head, and snuggle her blue-and-white quilt around her.

  Like an art critic examining a statue, Sandy steps back to survey our work. “This is not Katie’s best angle,” she says matter-of-factly. She crosses to the other side of the gurney and takes a look. “Much better. Her neck looks less swollen from over here. And her incision won’t show as much. Dan should see her first from this side. Let’s turn her gurney around.”

  “Do we have permission to move her?”

  “Do we care?”

  “Works for me.”

  We grab the gurney and begin to rotate it. “Hang on, Katie!” I say. “Road trip!”

  Is it wrong to create levity in the depths of life’s pain? Is it irreverent? I don’t think it is. Sometimes—not every time, but sometimes—it’s okay to laugh to keep from crying, laugh in order to breathe, laugh to survive the moment. And if anyone would’ve given us permission for a brief flicker of laughter on this heavy day, it would be our girl who regularly laughed herself into a giggling heap on the floor. She would not take offense at our coming up to breathe.

  We step back. “Her lips are too white,” I say. Katie never wore lipstick because her lips were naturally red, and I hadn’t foreseen the ashen hue they would have today. I packed only her clear lip gloss. “Crap. I have no lip color with me. And Katie would just die if we left her lips so—”

  My words catch in my throat. I shoot a glance at Sandy. She grins at my poor choice of words.

  I shrug. “Too late!” I say, and we laugh again.

  Forgive us. We are coming up for air.

  “I have a red lip gloss with me,” Sandy says. She pulls a rosy-red tube from her purse. We apply the gloss to Katie’s lips, and it adds just the right amount of color.

  The final touch is Kati Harkin’s newsboy cap. I lift her head, and Sandy slips the cap in place. She cocks it jauntily across Katie’s forehead, dipping it low enough over her right temple to cover any evidence of the surgery. Katie has always looked good in hats. Today is no different.

  I pull out her favorite perfume, something from Victoria’s Secret. A few light sprays mask any lingering scent of hospital or funeral home. I breathe in, savoring that familiar Katie smell of her perfume mingling with her skin, her hair.

  We stand back and survey our handiwork.

  “She looks darn cute, September,” Sandy says.

  “Compared to where we started, she looks terrific,” I say. “I think we’re done.” I look at my watch. It is pushing two o’clock. Almost three hours have passed. It is time to go.

  We gather our things and stand for a moment at the head of Katie’s bed, two sentinels who have fought together against the ugliness of death. Tears pool in Sandy’s eyes. She kisses Katie’s head. “I love you, girl,” she says and walks out of the room. The door clicks behind her, and I am alone again with my daughter.

  What now?

  This is my last chance to see Katie, to capture her in my mind’s eye. I want to memorize every detail of her face, her hands, her body. I pull out my cell phone and aim its camera toward her. Is this morbid? Perhaps. Probably. In the 1800s, it was common for people to have a tintype photo taken of their loved ones in death. But it seems borderline creepy today. Once I walk out of this room, I will never see her again. I may choose to never look at these photos, but at least I have the option. No regrets.

  Click. Click.

  Like the last swirls of water draining from a tub, my moments with Katie are drawing to a close. Irrational, panicky thoughts begin to spin: I don’t have to leave just yet. I could stay with her all afternoon, right up until she is cremated. I could just sit here and keep her company until the very last minute. I could hold her hand and . . . and . . . And what? Are there perfect words I should be saying? If so, what are they?

  Katie had already said her goodbye to me. “Love you, Mom,” she’d told me over the phone on Saturday as she was driving to work, just moments before she died. This body that my eyes now hungrily memorize is where my daughter lived out her nineteen years, but life is in the soul. Before me lies her empty cocoon. Katie is gone.

  I reach out and stroke her hand. “Goodbye, Katiebug. I love you. Goodbye.”

  I kiss her hands, her forehead, then her lips. I turn and with automated steps walk out of the room.

  We pull into the driveway at home and find Matt, Adam, and Jeremiah (the grad-school intern who is living with us) hauling bags of river stone to the front flower bed. They are putting the finishing touches on the interrupted landscape project Scott began last week.

  “We introverts need a break from all those people,” Matt says, thumbing toward the house. This isn’t the first time I’
ve found the three of them hanging together outside, talking or just sitting in the shade, sipping Cokes. What must it be like for introverts, trying to process their grief amid the bustle inside? How do they refuel their overstimulated souls? This landscaping project probably helps. Something physical they can put their hands to, expressing love to Scott in a tangible, practical way.

  “Your dad will be so grateful,” I say.

  “Yep!” Matt says, and I smile at that familiar expression of his, which reveals the little-boy mixture of pride and delight he feels whenever he’s helping others. His joy in being helpful is one of the things people love most about my firstborn son—myself included. Sandy and I leave them alone, and they resume hauling bags of rock to the flowerbed.

  That afternoon, Dan calls. He has paid his final visit to my daughter.

  “Mrs. Vaudrey, she looked so beautiful,” he says. “Thank you.”

  No regrets.

  Evening comes. Our house is a haven of friends and family enjoying good food and savoring one another’s company. If it wasn’t for the horrid reason everyone has gathered, these would be the grandest of days—reminiscent of Matt and Andrea’s wedding last summer, when these very same people were in town, gathered at our home.

  Here we are again, the house filled to capacity. Last year, unabashed joy was the dominant emotion of the day. Now, though we cling to one another in sorrow, flickers of joy are present. We are utterly real. We cry, but we also laugh, hug, and tell stories, just as we have done before. The kids play and cry and sit together in stillness—and make us laugh as they always have. They find solace among their peers that no grown-up can provide. The paradox of laughter at one end of the kitchen and tears at the other—and no one thinking this is odd—captures the authenticity we feel with one another.

  This is life in its fullest—true community as God likely dreamed it to be. Our shared pain is softened by one another’s presence, and our friendships are deepened by the piercing presence of the pain.

  27

  FRIDAY

  Katie was dedicated to her uncle Greg. Just two months ago, she spent spring break in Seattle with my parents, in part to visit him. It added a bit of light to his small world, and he loved her deeply.

  The unfairness of life handing my brother yet another sadness is crazy-making to me. Greg has cerebral palsy. He has an IQ of 69 and has epilepsy. He is wheelchair bound. He has such bad arthritis that he takes pain meds 24/7, and yet his joints remain red and swollen. He’s often grouchy (any wonder?) and paranoid and self-focused.

  Why does life cast rays of sunshine upon some and send storm after storm to others? Even with the death of my daughter, I feel guilty for the blessings in my life compared to his. Since Saturday, every time I’ve thought of Greg, I have shoved the image from my mind. Too much. Too much guilt, too much pain. I have not spoken with him since Mom told him about Katie. I can’t go there, not yet.

  But on Friday morning, my kid brother, now forty-two, reaches out to me. He has typed an e-mail, striking each key of his computer keyboard with the contractured index finger of his right hand—the only finger he can commandeer to obey. I click to open his note:

  Hi sis, how are you feeling and doing today? I’m really sorry to here about your loss your daughter was a very kind hearted loving caring person I to feel your pain I surrow with all of you I spoke with Katie before she went to work via skype I told her I love you and she said that she loved me I thought you should know if you guys need anything I mean anything please give me a call at 555-640-0765 anytime day or night I’m praying deeply for all of you please give my love to the whole family and Dan and lots of hugs and kiss’s to I love you all very very much god bless love Greg jr

  Such a beautiful, selfless note. Beneath the bristly, irritable ways of my brother beats a deeply loving heart. Father, soothe his troubled soul. Bring comfort to my brother.

  I hit reply and answer his e-mail:

  Greg,

  Thank you for such a nice letter. Katie really loved you, and she enjoyed exchanging Facebook and e-mail notes with you. Glad you got to talk with her via Skype on Saturday. I love you, Greg.

  September

  My words pale in comparison to his. Me, the writer. It is all I can muster, and I know it isn’t enough. I feel ashamed that I can’t offer him more. Cover him, Father. I hit send.

  By nine, the house is buzzing. Sam offers to run errands for me. He picks up Katie’s art at the high school, where every piece has been gallery-matted with precision—and Curt Pinley not only restored Katie’s final work of art but also triple-matted and framed it. A small brass plaque that reads The Bleeding Tree glistens on the bottom crossbar. Rough draft though it is, this watercolor becomes a treasure to me, and I can’t help but wonder about its intended meaning.

  I gather a box of mementos from Katie’s room for my friend Susan to display in the Life Exhibit. Bethany and Tember add a few things as well, and Sam takes the box and artwork to the church.

  When he arrives home an hour later, he finds me.

  “Mom, you can’t imagine what’s happening over there,” he says. “There are dozens of staff people helping Susan set up the Life Exhibit, and a ton of Katie’s friends—Whitney, Ester, Melissa, Darla, the whole gang—are pitching in. It’s amazing. Can’t wait for you to see it.”

  “I still need to buy funeral clothes,” I tell Scott.

  “I need to go to Costco to print off a photo for Tember’s eulogy,” he says. “Let’s each run our errands and then meet back here at the house.”

  Scott heads to Costco, and twenty minutes later, Sandy and I set out for Kohl’s.

  Halfway there, my cell phone rings. I pick up and hear choked-back sobs on the other end.

  “Scott? Are you okay?”

  “I . . . I can’t get Costco’s photo machine to work,” he says.

  My tech-savvy husband, stumped by a simple photo machine? No. This is not about the machine. Stalwart Scott has hit a wall. “I’ll be right there, honey,” I say.

  Sandy turns the car toward Costco, and a few minutes later, she drops me off at the main entrance.

  “Scott can drive me home,” I tell her.

  “We’ll hit Kohl’s as soon as you get back,” she says.

  Scott is standing just outside the store, a little more pulled together than he sounded on the phone, but with reddened eyes and trembling hands. I wrap my arms around him and cradle the back of his head with my hand. He begins to sob. People streaming past us stare, but we don’t care. Katie’s death has rightsized what things to worry about and what to let go.

  “I am so sorry, honey,” I whisper in his ear. “I’m so, so sorry for your loss.”

  You might think it is weird for me to express sorrow for his loss—when I lost a daughter too. Yet it makes perfect sense, really. No one knows what Scott is going through better than I do, so I am the best person to offer him sympathy. And no one understands what I lost as well as he does, so who better to empathize with me? We are learning to give our fullest sympathies to each other in our own unique downpourings of grief. Right now, it’s Scott’s turn. No doubt before the day is out, it will be mine.

  We pull it together, grab a shopping cart, and head inside the store, where we quickly master the photo machine and retrieve Tember’s picture—an eight-by-ten-inch print of the last photograph ever taken of Katie—the one she requested we take of her with Tember all dolled up last Friday for her eighth-grade dance.

  “Is there anything we need to buy?” Scott asks.

  “I dunno. I can’t think.”

  “Me neither.”

  But out of habit, we turn our cart up the main aisle. We wander, dazed, hoping we’ll remember something we should purchase.

  The other shoppers act as if this were just a regular day—chatting, browsing the merchandise, and loading stuff into their carts with such normalcy I want to scream. What is wrong with you people? Katie is dead. Everything has changed! The scene plays like a warped wide-angle
video. I feel dizzy.

  “Everyone’s acting normal,” I whisper.

  “I know. It’s bizarre.”

  We continue toward the back of the store and find ourselves in front of the liquor section. We have lots of relatives and guests in town, and even in our dazed state, Scott and I want to make them feel at home. Some of them drink rum and Cokes, and maybe gin and tonics. Scott finds a bottle of rum and another of gin. He lays them in the cart, and we continue on our way. But we cannot think of anything else to buy, and we can’t shake the bizarre feeling of shopping at our normal Costco as if everything were actually normal.

  “This is giving me the creeps,” Scott says. “Let’s get out of here.” We head toward the front of the store, the bottles clanking together in our basket.

  I point to the two lonely bottles of liquor. Nothing else in our cart. No food, no snacks, no toilet paper—just booze. “What will our friends think if they see us?”

  Scott grins. “They’ll assume we’re drowning our sorrows.” Like small-town teenagers not wanting to get caught buying beer, we scan the crowded lines for familiar faces. We get through checkout undetected and make a break for the car, each of us swinging a fifth of liquor at our side.

  Back at home, Sandy shows me an article about Katie from today’s Daily Herald. It is a flattering story about her role as a local artist. A newspaper reporter found her death to be newsworthy. Does every dead teenager get an article like this? The article validates my loss—and then I quickly feel ashamed for feeling validated. My dead teenager might have been somehow newsworthy as a local artist, but she was no more priceless or irreplaceable than anyone else’s child who has died.

  Yet I clip the article and tuck it safely in my desk drawer. Then Sandy and our friend Kristin, in town from Spokane, run me to Kohl’s and help me choose a simple black-print dress with small flowers, along with a pair of black flats. Kristin insists on picking up the tab.