A Ring Around The Rosie

We do not go and look above a body. We look above a Life.

On our lips-- a Name.

It's a person, a place, a thing. Whatever the noun, if it is the outlier, it is the Anomaly.  The Word of whatever it was that remained Unresolved in the lifetime of the dying.

That is the Name that escapes upon the breath, upon the fading gasps-- The Rose Bud as it were. The final vying for resolution. Perhaps for restitution. Or redemption. The return to a moment. To an opportunity. In any case, a desired course of correction for whatever actions remained taken or untaken, words spoken or unspoken-- that which might have altered the trajectory of the ones who lie at the brink of life and death with limbs still outstretched. The Departing, looking over the shoulder, at all the deformity; the chips and burdens in the now distant bodily backpack that was being so unwittingly carried to who knows where, never reaching its imaginary destination.

And now it is too late. Everything is suddenly more real than real. The Finality, which contorts with hallucinations, phantom sensations, stupor, and then with the Equilibrium, which only Death can bring.

I have seen the Dying up close on several occasions, among animals, but only once with a human being. I will refer only to He, as Who, so that we can focus on the What, and that you might better understand the nature of the Outlier.

He was dying. He had known it for months, as a foreboding, through subtle signals of the body. The shortness of breath. The fatigue. The black stool. The way the circulation wasn't flowing, and extremities would alternately whiten or blacken from lack of oxygen. Rigorous massage by his beloved would revive the hands or feet, but the forced blankness of his face betrayed an understanding of what was coming.

And when the time came, he demanded vehemently that all the windows and doors be opened!! Then he insisted they all be shut, because it was terribly cold, and a persecutory They were coming. He spoke of his poor Mommy. He remembered fondly his Father. He hollered for Her who was not here!! Anger over shook him and distain that she was always too late in coming. Always. Never living up to Her potential. On Her arrival, he no longer recognized her.

Then he reminisced about She for whom he had done everything, Everything, whose love had dissipated and escaped him. He called this one by proper name. He did not chide that articulated She for not being there. She was called tenderly by secreted pet name, and then words failed him... breath became a rasp, slow and rhythmic, and then a death rattle. He was pale, sculptural, cool to the touch and an expression of bliss covered his face. His eyes shut; his lips parted. He rested like this a while; then as if suddenly, the Soul was gone. 

When I called the One, the She who had been his Everything, and told her, she asked, of course. She asked the pertinent question about the last word and received it with an unhidden pleasure. The private long obscured pet name cementing that all Significant personal Importance in a Life now ended.

Jealously, She wanted to know if he had called out my name as well? No. He did not. She didn't comprehend the converse significance: that we had No unresolved issues.