By Jeff Woodard
July 2024
I have a new buddy. Why I don’t make more time for him, I’m just not sure.
He’s a storyteller. A doozy of a storyteller.
The other day I popped over to see him. During my previous visit, we sat out on his tiny front porch and enjoyed the sunshine and warmth provided by the low-in-the-sky sun shining from the south. Temps were comfy, in the 60s, but breezes were just cool enough that Joe sported a fleece jacket. For good measure, his caregiver had given him a fleece throw to drape over his lap.
As I pull my 2006 Rav-4 in front of his modest home in this modest neighborhood straight outta the 1960s – everyone knows everybody else and would happily do anything for anyone else – I see him standing in the doorway, Rollator at his side. He gives me a wave. At age 87, he knows very well what time it is.
I park and go in and notice the catheter affixed to his Rollator. Just inside the door, I’m greeted by his part-time caregiver. It’s only the second time I’ve met her, but she is wearing the same warm smile she had on previously. As we walk our way into the living room, I mention how I’ve been looking forward to hearing about Sam’s recent trip to Canada with his daughter. He had me in stitches during my previous visit, telling me about her lead foot and pedal-to-the metal driving style.
“Yes,” said the caregiver, “you guys should have a lot to talk about today.” The insuination, clearly, is that there is much more – and likely more current – to talk about than Sam’s last venture into Canada. He offers me my customary spot at the end of the soft sofa that has seen better days while he approaches his easy chair. He isn’t even seated and the storytelling begns.
“Well, I’ve had an interesting day so far,” he starts. “I woke about about 5 this morning with this stabbing pain in my heart. It didn’t last long at all, it went away quickly. It happened again a couple more times, but went away just as quickly. But I thought I better let Becky know.”
Becky is his daughter, legally blind and boldly courageous, who comprises part of Joe’s care support team. She lives next door but often spends the night at her father’s house. She is none too relieved to hear the answer to her question, “Dad, has this happened before?” Becuase the answer is, “Yeah, it started a couple weeks ago.”
She’s afraid to ask a follow-up, but she does anyway. “How many times?” His answer: “A few.”
So Joe prods ahead with the story. “We called 9-1-1, and oh, my God!” I could not tell if that was a good “OMG” or a bad one, so I asked. “Oh, my, there must have been 10 people in my house within two minutes. There were two squad cars and a firetruck out front before I even knew what was going on.”
In quick fashion, Joe said they hoisted him onto the gurney out his front door, down the steps and the sidewalk to the waiting squad car. “When I got to the hospital, boom! It was the same thing in the ER; people came running from every direction.”
I interrupt to interject: “Well, obviously, the knew they had an important person who needed help!”
He said that all tests were negative, and that, miracle of miracle, he was able to get a hold of all three of his doctors and all concurred that he merely needed an increase in his current medication of Lasix. Ninety minutes later, he was back home. “I was back in bed by 7 o’clock,” he said with a smile.
He glances down at the floor and shows me the tool box with the fancy multi-headed screwdriver. Six scredrivers in one, all different sizes. He also says he’s going with his son-in-law to get the car washed – “It’s been a month!” – and then stop at the local cigar shop where the owner gives him all kinds of boxes that the business no longer needs.
June 2024
Joe falls at home and sustains a broken shoulder. He goes to the hospital for a few days, then on to a rehab facility to heal. He isn’t at the rehab center 12 hours when his daughter receives a 5:30 a.m. Phone call at 5:25 a.m. on July 5 from a not-so-polished employee of the rehab center. “Sorry to inform you, but your Dad’s dead.”
“When we got there, he was in bed, fully dressed, neat, clean, shaven.”
One nurse said Joe died in bed; another said the TV remote control cord was twisted around his leg and he was on the floor. “THERE IS NO CORD FOR THE TV REMOTE,” cried Natalee… They said coroner had already been called and that “it was probably a heart attack.”
Dr. Crandell, according to Natalee, was called and was LIVID, having just given Joe a clean bill of heart health only days earlier.
Coroner got the call at 5:53 a.m.
“Three times they asked me, ‘When are you calling Chambers? When are you calling the funeral home?’”
Cindy and Shawn hurriedly drove down from Canada. Natalee says Cindy wanted immediate cremation, but Natalee insisted on autopsy. They had words, Cindy wanted it over with and didn’t want to spend thousands on a private autopsy, but Natalee was/is furious.
The nurse who was on duty the night of July 4 did not attend the powwow on July 5.
Natalee took Joe’s watch, later in the day on July 5, she got brave enough to look at it. “10:20,” it read. Through tears on the phone, she said, “I hope it didn’t happen at 10:20 that night and I hope he didn’t lie there in pain all night.” She figures his watch might have stopped on impact. Battery was new, why else would a watch stop like that?
Cindy and Shawn returned to Canada the next day, late afternoon.
Wake 7/18
Funeral 7/19