“You didn’t really think that she would rise up off her deathbed and take you behind the woodshed, now did you?” she says. “I hardly think their misinterpretation of hospice services would warrant taking anyone behind the woodshed,” I fire back. I interrupt Lara, my straw-haired white supervisor, before she could tell me why she called and ask, “What happens behind the woodshed?” “It’s the office,” and with a slight stutter, “I need to take this call.” I hold my cell phone high in the air and say, She continues to babble those threats against us on her deathbed.īuzz buzz. Her lullings are threats to our brown bodies. Through cold, blue lips she intones lullabies to her offspring. All pulses are present and getting stronger. My assessment is complete! It is clear to me that she is not dying. The home with the narrow-minded hallways. This is the dimly lit home of the dying patient. Putrescine mixed with cadaverine are in the air. Am I in the hospital room of the newborn whose grandmother crooned racist lullabies or am I in the bedroom of the old woman whose dying wish is to drag me behind the woodshed? My present pain or my ever-present ghost? My eyes adjust to the light. The buzz of my cell phone vibrating against my leg interrupts my torment. I wonder, if I holler, will they let me go? This is a racist horror of a nursery rhyme, one that I couldn’t believe people ever sang. I am a voyeur of some distant ancestral vision, unable to interact, only able to see, only able to remember that is not how I had sung this lullaby to my children. The room, now black like me, closed in, foreboding.
I thought of my ebony hand holding the newborn’s oxygen against her shaky and blue veined one, underneath the warmth of the incubator. The eldest member of the family, silver-headed and clumsy, slides over with her walker in hand and agreed to take over the important task of playing with the newborn’s feet which freed my hands to hold the oxygen. While encouraging him to exercise his ability to breathe air, I tickle his tiny toes. I was pleased at how quickly this little one was going from dusky blue to bright pink. We had worked so hard to get this newborn here safely. My shift had ended and I should have left but I was compelled to see the end of this birth story. His mother has pushed for hours while I wiped her brow and rooted her on while monitoring him during his prolonged birth. I am holding the oxygen tubing close to the wrinkled face of a newborn. My head pounds as I find myself within a reliving a vivid memory from my early nursing career. The words, replaying, clear as a bell: “Drag this nigga behind the woodshed.” How will I get away? His neck, cheeks and arms are tinged pink from the Oklahoma sun. The old woman’s son stands between me and the door. I watch the dying woman writhes with hate on what I had been led to believe was her deathbed. His dying mother hisses, “Son, do we need to drag this nigga out back to the woodshed?” I dropped my hand and said, “Excuse me, sir, but you can’t leave your mother!” I was not there to replace him as the primary caregiver and he had not given me enough time to explain. He was operating under the misunderstanding that the hospice nurse would move in and take care of his loved one as death approached. The red-faced man ignored my outstretched hand and moved past me.
Eenie meenie miney mo i catch a hoe by her toe skin#
Pain pierced my skin from the salty drops of sweat that dampened my armpits, my groin and my brow. I walked over to him, extended my hand and opened my mouth to introduce myself when he fired, “You are late!” I felt my heartbeat quicken.
The patient’s caregiver, her adult son, stood at her bedside. Old women don’t run races like this for long. The skin on her hands and feet were varying shades of splotched sky blue and cobalt. Her lips were cotton candy blue due to lack of circulation, cold and chapped. Her hair, white as snow, lay damp against her scalp. I found the room where my soon-to-be-patient lay dying. It can be traumatic to see a recently departed family member manhandled, or worse, fall to the floor as he or she is being taken out of the home for the last time.Īs a hospice nurse, my job is to always ensure dignity. I make a note to communicate in my admission documentation that the funeral home would need two people to retrieve the deceased body from the tight halls of this family home. I press my petite body against the large doorway frame and follow the hum of the oxygen machine down the cramped hallway. The text message from the office said to enter the home through the side door. It was supposed to be a routine hospice nurse visit.
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