9-27-21-8:05

It has been less than 24 hours of a world without Rico in it.

I went to his room at eight in the morning yesterday He was sound asleep. I crawled in next to him big spoon style and held him for an hour.

The float nurse came in to give him his meds - with water - which he couldn't do on a good day. I told her he usually takes them with applesauce. She proceeded to pour all 13 pills into a shot glass and top it off with applesauce. I asked her if I could just do it myself. She agreed.

We sat him up and it became apparent that there was no way he could swallow anything. That's what glioblastoma does - it takes away your ability to swallow, your ability to speak - sometimes for months. We were lucky.

His regular nurse Jan called Dr. Jane and we agreed to stop all of his meds except liquid Morphine, Ativan and Seroquel. 

We laid him back down. He looked at me with those brown eyes one last time and said, "We don't have a lot left."

I held his hands and let my tears fall on his pillow, "No honey. No we don't."

I smiled at him and told him how much I loved him.

"It's all we got," He said, "A lot of love. A lot of love. A lot of love. A lot of love . . . ."

I held his face in my and told him that there was enough love to last through eternity.

I big spooned him for most of the day. He'd told me the night before that he could not wait to read my words, to see how I told his story. He also said the obituary better be good - so I laid there just thinking about how incredible his life was and how I could never do it justice.

I filled him up with love. Over and over and over again. Last night he told me he wanted 8 kisses - so I gave him at least 800. 

Our neighbor Dr. Jane stopped. She brought love from the neighborhood.

Pastor Inger came to pray with him. 

Noah and Nika came in after school, they kissed his face and told him they loved him. 

He elbowed me once in the face. The bed is small, so I got up, and we made sure he was comfortable before I climbed back in. He woke up once more and said "I love you honey."

When we first met he said he wanted to be reincarnated as a bird. I talk to him a lot about flying away, and that it's time for him to be free.

We played music he loved. Our favorite night nurse Virginie came in and sang to him. She told him how much he was loved - and she told me how much he loved me too.

He died in my arms at 8:05 last night. We were listening to the Beatles, he took his last breath, and All You Need is Love began to play.  I let the song play. When it finished I called Virginie in. "He's gone," I told her.

She made sure I was right.

I called Kaia, who was already on her way home. I drove home to tell Nika and Noah in person. We hugged and cried and then I went back to him.

I gave him 800 more kisses, held his hand so that I would never forget the perfect way it fit into mine. Kaia showed up at the door. Of all of my kids, she is the most like me in these situations - it's not over until it's over.

We cried and hugged and told him over and over - wherever he was how much we loved him. Virginie and Jan where there. They brought us hot tea, cried with us and told us what a beautiful man, a beautiful family a beautiful love we had - we'll always have.

Jason's plane had just landed, he met us there. We took another two hours to love Rico, to look at him, to remember what his face really looked like when it was at peace. Then we called the funeral home.

They asked - they always ask if we can step out of the room so they can load him up. 

No.

No I will not.

He is mine, and nobody will put him on that stretcher, nobody will cover him up, nobody will zip that god forsaken bag but me.

I tell Jason and Kaia that they are free to go, but they stay. They help lift him carefully onto the stretcher. I walk around to the other side of the bed. The nurse and Bryce, the funeral home director, step back a bit, because this is clearly my job. 

Slowly, because I hate myself for what I am doing, but would hate myself more for letting anyone else do it, I begin to zip up the heavy bag that will carry him to the morgue. I stop at his face, his beautiful, peaceful, always curious, laughing face. I take it in my hands and kiss him 8 more times.  I can't bring myself to cover his face, so Bryce helps me out. 

We all help push his stretcher out of his room then out of the building, then into the back of a mini-van. Yeah - I thought it would be a hearse too, but it's not - and for some reason it's oddly comforting.

We load the stretcher into the back and Bryce shuts the door. He nods at us and gets into the van. It slowly starts to pull away and I fall onto my knees right onto the street. There are no screams left in me, but so many tears. "No. No. No. No. No. No" I can't feel where I am. I know Rico is in the stars and also in that van and somehow he is everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

Kaia sits next to me, wraps me up in her love. Jason takes my hand. Jan the nurse is there making sure we don't get run over. I don't care if I do. I should, but I don't.

Kaia helps me stand. 

I take his pillows from his room - the last little thing that has any of his smell left. Jason drives to a hotel, Kaia is with me. It is 12:30 am.

We get out of the car and the night is full of stars. I shout up to them "Thank you Rico!!! Thank you!"

Kaia joins me and there we are two crazy people in the middle of our street that he loved so much shouting "We love you Rico! We LOVE YOU. Thank you for a beautiful life!"

The most unbearable 24 hours of my life.

But we have survived. We have survived because he made us strong and your love holds us up. We are so thankful that we have the love we do between us - and around us - you all have been the saving grace we need.