I’ve been hiding from my relatives, the ones local to me here in Tennessee, for a while.

It’s not that I don’t like them, or wish them any kind of harm. I just don’t know them and we’ve got little in common. My great aunt, Thelma, is near 87 years old and her husband, Hollie, is going on 99. I’m amazed at their longevity, their love for each other and the history that they expouse in remembrance.

Last week I got a call that Thelma had had a stroke. Her health had been failing for a while, not in a physical debilitation (although her excessive weight was always a concern) but because her mental state started to deteriorate. The stroke was a last threshold for keeping her around, I think.

I got the call from my grandmother who, in her hypochondriacal way, told me that I HAD to go see them. I agreed, knowing a two-fold issue was at stake. 1.) If I didn’t go, my family would be uninformed of her state from me (a matter-of-fact observer) and would probably be treated scornfully for not going. 2.) I’d most certainly regret not seeing them one last time.

They’re really wonderful people. Hollie has been, in the half-dozen times that I’ve seen them in my life, a very spry and funny guy. He was always fast with a smile and a “How do you do?”. Thelma landed the role of the southern, sympathetic woman who just as easily told you with a smile that you didn’t come around enough while fixing up an extra plate of food at the dinner table when you did show up.

Hollie has had some health problems in the past, most of which I don’t know about and that put Thelma in a position of caretaker. She cooked and cleaned and maintained a heavy supply of home-canned pickles whilst looking after Hollie’s needs. Thelma is the type of woman that you’d want to spend the rest of your life with, and the two have been inseparable for longer than I’ve been around.

When Thelma had her stroke she needed more care than living at home would allow. Her left side is affected and she can no longer walk or do the usual bathing. Hollie can’t do much for himself without Thelma. They’ve both been put into a hospice as of late.

That’s where my title comes from. I really did see death the other day when I went to visit. It’s a shoddy old school-house turned by an organization into a hospice. Through the hallways you’re overwhelmed by the smell of piss and excrement and bleach. I passed a half-dozen people sitting catatonic in wheelchairs on the faded and torn tile hallways on the way to Thelma and Hollie’s room.

Inside the room are two small beds and only a smattering of medical and decorative touches. A bed high food tray and clothes hamper, two small shelves for personal belongings and a handicap-equipped bathroom. With the curtains open to the outside you can see a makeshift garden and courtyard where the spring flowers have started to bloom. More than for the residents, it’s a smoking lounge that is boxed in on three sides by the two-story building.

Thelma sat in her wheelchair near the window, never looking out. We all made references to the view but somewhere in the confusion that is her mind, she didn’t understand what we were saying. Normally a rotund, pear-shaped woman with bright blue eyes, Thelma has lost all but about 130 pounds and stares spacily at nowhere. Every so often, when it seems her mind jumps back on track, she’ll mention something but it regularly turnes incoherent and confused mid-sentence.

Hollie, still comfortable in his age, watches the group that has gathered. He shakily tries to eat and hold a pint of milk. His hands grab a spoon, his decidedly easiest utensil to eat with, with a child-like grasp. All the way to his mouth the spoon, holding a bird-sized portion of food, dips and sways on the way to his mouth. Between bites he watches the nurse feed Thelma.

In conversation, as I’ve always known Hollie to do, he displays a smile and a peek at his small lower teeth. He’s got really amazing blue eyes. They can shine at you from across the room and you know he’s smiling without seeing his mouth curve. Hollie has started using a new walking stick in the last while. Last I saw he gave up a old, carved wooden one for a decapitated golf club. It looks to be the shaft of a driver, long and thicker, but he’s added a few papertowels to the handle held on with multi-colored rubber bands.

The room is lit only with the light coming from the bright sunlight outside. In fact, I only saw the flourescents being used at the nursing stations. Wheelchair marks and squeaks of black from the easy-to-maneuver hospital beds mark up the floors. In the hallway it looks as if they’re going to be doing some rennovation. A great expanse of tile has been ripped up leaving the black of the glue in patterns.

A nearby nurse’s station is crowded with people, hospital workers mostly, standing back to back. There’s little room for them to work at the countertops and it looks like they’ve been packed into the area by force than by choice.

As I get ready to leave I make a point to sit with Thelma and Hollie individually. Somewhat from a choice to get a last impression of how they look and act aside from the goings on around them, but also to because I know they won’t be around much longer. I sit with Hollie first, mostly because I’ve had a hard time talking with Thelma and I’m kind of frightened. I tell him that it’s good to see him and in a compassionate tone tell him I love him and to “take care, young man”. He’s laying down in his bed, pillow between his knees and says it’s good to see me, too.

Thelma hasn’t had a good day, from what Irene tells me. Through the confusion in her mind, a hard time eating and the loss of control of her bodily functions we were ushered from the room for a while by nurses who need to clean her up.

When we re-enter the room Thelma has been helped from her wheelchair and into her bed. She’s been informed that it’s best to get some sleep before going to see the physical therapist later in the afternoon. To help her mobility, the hospice has her do PT on a regular basis. It mostly consists of picking up blocks and fitting pegs into their places –coordination techniques.

She’s laying down on the bed and though her body looks comfortable, her eyes still stare upward in a glassy, “where am I?” way. When I sit down next to her she looks toward me. While it’s been a while since we’ve sat in her avacado and wood paneled kitchen and eaten bologna sandwiches I attempted to detect an amount of familiarity to me. If she remembered me, it didn’t show, although she was kind and called me “honey” as I told her good bye. I gave her hand one last squeeze and kissed her cheek as she blinked and gave me a smile.

It would be very easy to dismiss that her mind has completely gone to a more comfortable place, somewhere free of her body, but I don’t know if that’s accurate. While we were there, she commented to Irene about how she felt -tired or hungry. She complimented Irene’s chopped and sugared apples. Even several times she tried to move her legs in an attempt to get up. To me, that’s a person attempting to regain a sense of autonomy and mobility. Never one to be stagnant or to let people cater to her, my great aunt Thelma is still trying.

As Irene and I left the room Hollie was a yawn closer to sleeping and Thelma had finally closed her eyes to rest.

I don’t know them very well. They’ve lived in such a different world from the one I have, but at the end (of this visit or in life) somehow we’ve had these moments to reconnect. Not just as human beings but as family.