PERSONAL ESSAY: Warmth in a Cold Hospital Room

Originally written for Rick Bragg's Specialized Magazine Writing class at The University of Alabama.

When I walked into the hospital room on a bitter November Friday in 2015, I was greeted with a whisper: “Who the hell are you?”

The question seared through my soul, turning an already sterile hospital room as cold as the 20-degree Indiana wind outside. It came from my grandfather. Lung cancer was taking his life, but I had not expected his mental capacity was fading with it. I was unrecognizable to a man I had known my entire life.

The abruptness of it all, the unplanned 250-mile trip, the god-awful weather, the death spiral of a man I loved, made it so much worse. Almost unbearable. We had rushed up to Indiana the night before, peeling out of the parking lot of my high school to begin a frantic four-hour drive north to Deaconess Midtown Hospital in Evansville, all the while praying we could make it before my grandfather took his final breaths.

Raised in Huntsville, Alabama, I was not easily accustomed to the cold. That winter saw a low of 54 degrees with mild winds and plenty of sun in my hometown. We wouldn’t see a single snowflake that year in the heart of the Tennessee Valley. Evansville, however, was different. It was a usual November in Indiana, where the Canadian chill floated over the Great Lakes and into the flat farmlands of one of the most uneventful states in the union. Alabama winters nipped at those who endured it; Indiana winters bit.

Back in the hospital, I was still trying to cope with the notion that my grandfather did not recognize me in one of the moments where it counted the most. It had been a year since he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. His first prognosis allowed him a few years at most, but constant bouts of pneumonia completely debilitated him, filling his already plagued lungs with fluid. We first anticipated that he could make it to my high school graduation in the spring, but his last battle with pneumonia ruled out any chance he would survive another chemotherapy session.

Now he barely had until Thanksgiving, his favorite holiday.

My mother brushed my arm to snap me out of my shock, then pointed to my head to identify the source of his confusion. The last time my grandparents saw me, almost a year prior for Christmas, my hair was chopped into a short, brown bob and I exclusively wore contacts. I had since traded that look for what became my signature aesthetic: long, flaming crimson hair and brown glasses that overpowered my facial features. In this moment, I was a stranger to him.

My grandfather stared at me with tired, glassy eyes. Those eyes saw foreign countries, narrowed through the scope of a sniper rifle in war-torn jungles, looked lovingly at his wife of 46 years, marveled at two children who grew from infants to full-grown adults in what seemed like an instant, and now picked my silhouette apart in the doorway of his final resting place. I stepped forward and took a seat by his bedside, waiting for a spark of recognition in his sad, sullen face.

“It’s me, Grandpa. Savannah, your granddaughter,” my voice shook as I pleaded for him to understand. When he let out a shaky sigh, followed by a quiet “ahh,” I knew he’d gotten it.

“Ah yes, Savannah. Your hair,” he mustered up nearly every ounce of his energy to make out those five words. I grabbed his hand to stop him, a gesture he knew to mean he needn’t say any more. His eyelids sank, a single tear falling with them. His breaths came slowly, labored, each threatening to be his last.

My aunt pinballed around the dull, small room that barely fit the five family members who were present. She fired quick and falsely optimistic questions at the hospital bed. “Are you comfortable? Do you want another pillow? A sip of sweet tea? Are you cold? Hot? Tired? In pain?” He was too weak to answer any of them with anything but a muffled grunt, followed by a slow, pained moan.

The top priority at this point was comfort and closure. We had planned to remove my grandfather’s respirator as soon as my great uncle arrived from Virginia to say his goodbyes. The doctors warned that removing the respirator would officially start the countdown none of us were ready for, but we were out of options.

He turned his head away from me, keeping his bony fingers between my hands. He motioned for his wife, who was situated on a rigid recliner that had doubled as her bed for the past few weeks. She’s at his side in an instant.

“Henrietta, am I dying?” He asked the question almost definitively, already knowing the answer he sought. My heart fell with my tears.

“We’re all dying, Buddy. You’re just here because you got a little sick,” she replied, that same forced optimism clouding her sorrows. Leave it to my grandmother to be the most reassuring, kind-hearted soul in the room when it’s her who deserves to be in shambles.

I sat there as he took her answer in, his hand like ice in mine. Even inside, the cold still threatens. I traced his knuckles and veins with my thumbs, willing all my body heat to transfer to him. His brother arrived shortly after, staying only for a few minutes as he offered a stoic rumble as affection. Death did not phase these old military men, but my great uncle’s eyes said more than his lips could. His little brother was almost gone.

When it came time to remove the respirator, I reluctantly unclasped my hands from my grandfather’s as doctors and nurses entered the room, along with a chaplain. Some of us left the hospital room to give the doctors more space. My mother and I stepped outside so she could smoke a cigarette, a despised habit she only gave into when she was on the brink of a panic attack. We retrieved the bottle of Ativan from the console of our Ford Explorer and took one each, allowing the chalky pills to dissolve under our tongues, wiping away a fraction of the anguish we were feeling. It could be any minute now.

My mother’s cigarette was cut short by a gust of wind that nearly knocked us over. Even in the bitter cold, our faces burned from the icy whips of the northern winds that lashed at any exposed skin we dared allow. We Alabama girls were not made for this.

Rushing inside to the fourth floor of Deaconess, only family members were left to watch, worry and weep. I noticed a familiar orange bottle with a white cap peeking out of my aunt’s purse. She opted for Xanax to finish out the day. I reclaimed my seat at my grandfather’s bedside and took his hand in mine once again. They were a little warmer than before, and I would like to think it was because of me. For the first time since I arrived, I felt a little warmer myself.

I gave my grandfather a quick kiss on his forehead as he drifted into a deep sleep. The doctors had filled his IV bag with a healthy cocktail of morphine after removing his respirator. The fluid in his body would soon refill his lungs and at any moment, he’d take his final breath.

Every November, no matter where I am, I am reminded of that Indiana winter that tore through me like no cold ever had. If I’m ever faced with a situation where I feel like it’s too cold to function, my mind races back to that Friday afternoon and I remember that no amount of chill could top what I felt in Evansville that day. The weather, paired with the emptiness in my heart as I watched my grandfather die, will forever be my coldest memory.

But, in those moments since, I remember all he had taught me. He helped raise me to be resilient, fierce, fearless. He reminded me that the world was what I chose to make it, regardless of whatever adversity or trials were thrown my way. Even then at his bedside with his hand in mine, I replayed these affirmations over and over, willing myself not to cry. Mostly, I was worried for him. I feared he had unaccounted regrets or worries he hadn’t settled. I stressed about whether he would feel pain in his final moments; if he would leave this world in discomfort or malaise, a shell of his former self. With no dentures to fill out his mouth and no more life to light up his face, he already looked so different. Was the father figure I so loved and admired even still inside of that pale, sunken body?

These thoughts dart in and out of my subconscious until I’m overpowered by a rush of ease. Even at my coldest, I had suddenly never felt warmer. I knew he would be OK. He was a man of God, a war veteran, Army brat, the toughest person I knew. He taught me to be a warrior, so how dare I question his own tenacity? He was sure. He was strong, capable.

He had four more days.