Michael David Ross: October 27, 1940- March 3, 2019, 8:45 pm
Good news: Mike passed peacefully on March 3, 2019, at 8:45 pm. Hawaii time.
Bad news: Mike is gone from our lives.
I slept well for part of the night and then more restlessly afterward. Yvette did get up at 4:00 am to join the Krishna’s for their morning meditation. She came back around 6 am and went back to bed. I didn’t realize that immediately. I was out when she got back.
Today was D-Day. We got to the hospital around 9:30 am. We were told immediately that we already had a visitor. Jeff from the diaconate formation program was sitting with Mike. He left sometime after we arrived.
I had made it clear to the staff that we wanted to have him off life support at 2pm. Around 10 am, I asked the nurse to remove any tubes he didn’t need to support life for the next 4 hours. I also requested that the bed be moved closer to the window so Mike could experience sunlight on his face, but not so close that Yvette couldn’t fit in on that side of the bed. The nurse asked us to leave the room for 10 minutes while they arranged the room.
I took the opportunity to visit B. I went down to the 4th floor ICU and waltzed into his room. Only one problem: there was a total stranger in there. The nurse tracked B. down. He had been moved to the 2nd floor. He was doing much better. Less pain and less pain medication. I didn’t stay long. This was my last day with Mike, and it was there I wanted to be.
Yvette sat with him more than I did. Writing has been a release for me, so I switched back and forth between writing and kissing Mike, and reminding him that he had done and been enough.
Then I asked if he could be shifted so I could get in bed with him early because I was so tired and hoped to be able to get some sleep lying next to him. Two nurses came in, shifted him, and I got into bed with him. I thought I would fall asleep right away. I didn’t; I couldn’t. I usually can sleep anywhere.
Damon told me yesterday he wanted to say some final words to his father. He spoke of all the fun times they had together as he was growing up, and more recently.
I was told that they would start the morphine drip to keep him comfortable 15 minutes to half an hour before they pulled the intubation tube. I think they did it around noon.
Deacon Clarence and his wife, Vi, came by shortly before two and sat with us. Almost precisely at two pm, the respiratory therapist came in to pull out his tube. They warned us that it wasn’t a pretty sight. I was lying next to him and covered my face with a towel. Yvette chose to watch it. She said there was nothing gross about it, but it clearly made him uncomfortable. His arm came up defensively higher than she had seen it move since she arrived. But, after that, he was peaceful.
I said what I wanted to say. “I, Elizabeth Susan David-Ross, release you, Michael David Ross, from your earthly bond of marriage into the hands of God.” I thought if there’s a marriage ceremony where we were both there, there should be a ceremony for dissolving that marriage. While we may or may not be bound to each other forever into eternity, this earthly bond is surely over.
At three o’clock, which is the time of day that Christ died, Vi led us through the Divine Chaplet. This particular prayer is said to be helpful for the dying. Clarence and Vi left after being there for quite a while. Their presence was a blessing.
Damon, Cylin, and August were on Facetime with us once the intubation tube was out. He stayed in visual contact with us until Mike had clearly taken his last breath. It was a long process: 6 hours and 45 minutes. (We had two cell phones, Mike’s and mine. We switched them out.) During part of it, Damon pulled up pictures he had of his father. He sent those to Yvette’s cell phone. We all shared memories of our time together with him and with each other.
After a while, it got boring. The four of us talked about other things, Yvette was on her phone doing Facebook posts and taking pictures of Mike with me, with her, and with the three of us. I lay in bed and read the NY Times on my Kindle, something we did together normally.
I got up several times to go to the bathroom during the process. Each time Yvette had to help me. The bar which blocks the lower body had to be lowered, and then she had to help me sit up. Around 6 pm Yvette went to the hospital cafeteria and got dinner for both of us. I got out of bed to eat but didn’t finish the whole meal. The portions here are enormous.
Afterward, I got back In bed with Mike. I had been anticipating the process would be fast because he hadn’t been initialing any breaths on his own for days. The nurse even said he was stronger than she had thought he was. God, I hope it wasn’t Mike fighting to live. I asked her if he had any chance to live and if we should change direction. She looked at his vitals and said no. That was the hardest part of the waiting, not being sure I was doing what he wanted me to do and what had to be done to save him more agony.
The end came quickly when it came. What was slow was watching his vital signs drop. His blood pressure kept dropping and dropping, finally at 60/30, and his oxygen rate to something like 62. He seemed to be breathing at a consistent rate until he just stopped. We thought he was through, but he took one more breath. We all noticed the time: 8:45pm. The doctor didn’t come in for a while. Understandably, Mike was not his priority in the ICU. I think his legal time of death is something like 9:02pm if I remember what the nurse said correctly.
Yvette and I packed up and headed to the ashram. We stayed up for a while. I wrote much of what is above. We went to sleep around 11 pm.
