FJHW Updated

(I first wrote this piece in late May of 2006. I sent it as an e-mail to some folks I thought would appreciate the telling of events. In this version I've added a paragrpah I had originally penned but then ommitted along with an explanation of why such ommission occured. It's marked with an aterisk at the beginning & is italicized. It appears close to 2/3rd's down the post. I've also added links to 2 songs I mentioned in the original. Some of the punctuation didn't translate from Word to this format so excuse the errors that I have not had the motivation to clean up as of yet)

Hey Michael.
Hey Frankie.
What brings you out here?
You know Colorado doesn’t have any good biscuits.
I know what that means.
Yeah.
(12 equals 100, 15 equals 200, 18 equals 300, 22 equals 400, 26 equals 500, 31 equals 600, 36 equals 700, 42 equals 800, 50 equals 900, 58 equals 1,000)

That’s my mother. I hadn’t seen her since January & they’d just wheeled her in from radiation. That was on May 12th around 10 a.m. EST. If it wasn’t for the family being in the room & the sound of her voice I wouldn’t have recognized her. The numbers Ill explain later.

But that was the way we’d talk. I’d be a smart ass & shed ignore it & go on with what she thought I was trying to conceal with my answer. Her son, her eldest child showing up meant that things were bad. She was right; I wouldn’t have made the drive if it were just a weekend stay in the hospital. But I always called her Frankie. It was never mom or mother or momma; just Frankie. Well unless I was trying to stress something then it was Frankie Jean. Both I acquired from her father. & to be fair I called all my other relatives by their names instead of their titles with the sole exception of my father’s mother. No idea why, that’s just how it was.

Frankie had cancer. In 2001 they took her breast & gave her poisons in controlled doses coupled with radiation & thought they had it licked. She had went back to work & went back to school to learn Spanish so she wouldn’t need an interpreter on her next mission trip to the Dominican Republic. In 2005 it had come back. Liver, lung & brain were the homes of new tumors, so she went back to the chemo & radiation. There were complications this time around though. In May of 05 her colon ruptured. They had to do emergency surgery (like there’s recreational surgery to contrast it with) & installed a colonoscopy bag. It was supposed to be temporary but turned permanent.

In May of 05 my ex-g/f & I went to see her. I hadn’t been back to Charlotte since December of 01, which was un-coincidentally with the same girl who was then not yet my ex. It was supposed to be a surprise but I think my stepfather ratted us out. We went out to various fish camps & such (Colorado being landlocked I missed flounder & hushpuppies something fierce) & all in all had a good visit. We even stayed at Frankie’s house which I was reluctant to do.

I had traveled to Pensacola Florida in February of 93 to see Frankie. It was a surprise visit; I don’t think I talked to anyone in the family since Jean (Frankie’s mom) died the November before. I was fairly young & not sure what I was doing at all. When I got to their house Danny asked what brought me to Pensacola. I replied an Oldsmobile & at that he became a little agitated & told me I could stay the night but in the morning Id have to leave. Frankie didn’t say much then but I knew she told him later on that if I wanted to stay I could. I didn’t I spent the day with her & left that evening for New Orleans but that’s another tale.

So if it weren’t for having my ex with me & not wanting to hurt Frankie’s feelings I would have stayed elsewhere. & all in all it went okay. My ex & Frankie got along well. Not just the polite southern way of getting along but they seemed to genuinely like each other. My ex’s mom had a few things in common with Frankie & I always thought one of the shames of our break up was that they’d never get to meet & discuss the Home Shopping Network addiction they both shared.

I went back in January of 06 for a few days. I had planned this trip for a few months & at the last minute had to do some shucking & jiving with the arrangements. Danny had once again clued Frankie in to my arrival & she didn’t want me to come. Not that she hated me or anything but she was pretty weak or weaker than she had been & didn’t want to worry about me driving halfway across the country.

Some more background:

In the fall of 05 new tumors had cropped up. One was in her hip & another in her right eye. Radiation got rid of the one in her hip & some kind of laser surgery got the one in her eye but it left her with failing vision. To add to her burden her lungs started acting funny. She spent the week before Christmas in the hospital & when she came home she had oxygen tanks.

They thought it was pulmonary fibrosis that was cutting her breath short. Oxygen & new meds were the prescription. The problem was that the new meds precluded chemo & radiation so while they were trying to fix her lungs the cancer started growing again.

She was up & around shortly, but had to deal with the colonoscopy bag & oxygen tanks. Frankie was always very mobile & it made her sad that she couldn’t go down to Charleston, S.C. with my ex & me when we visited the year before (but she rented us two nights in the hotel she knew I usually stayed at when Id play down there) so the further limitations on her mobility were aggravating.

That inability to get out coupled with her worrying about me driving across country was why she didn’t want me to come out there. She had offered numerous times to buy my plane ticket but I won’t fly.

I’m a gun nut. Worse, I’m a politically aware gun nut. I run a website that deals with political & legal issues about firearms & to put it mildly I have very strong opinions on the current state of gun control in the country. Any talk of September the 11th of 2001 usually results in me mentioning that it was the day when 19 punks with boxcutters beat the u.S. in an arms race. I feel positively naked if I’m more than a short walk from a rifle or a short jump from my pistols, so the idea of letting some jerk that makes a little over minimum wage take away my pocket knife just to fly on a commercial plane is a bit much for me to bear. Despite being unconstitutional it’s pragmatically disastrous as evidenced by anyone who watches United 93 & recalls when the passengers were scrounging for weapons.

So I drive cross country to go back home. Frankie never really understood this or at least didn’t agree with it but she was used to my being stubborn. The last Christmas card she sent me said as much (a real tear jerker she wrote while still in the hospital). It’s a trait we inherited (learned rather) from her father. It’s complex, perhaps too complex to be told here but I was raised by her parents so in a lot of ways she was more like a really close aunt or older sister than a mother. Not that it mattered or affected our relationship adversely. Wed argue like parents & kids do about the direction of the kid’s life & she’d worry about me the way that parents worry about their kids who don’t do things exactly the way they would.

So on that trip I took a longer than anticipated route & ended up spending 4 days in Charlotte rather than the week or so I was planning on.

The first night I was in town she was tired out from a doctor’s visit. The next day she, Lisa (my sister) & I went shopping then out to dinner that night. She had her oxygen bottles with her & used one up completely as she showed me the new mall a bit north of where she lived. She obviously forgot that I hated shopping just as much as when I was 4 & would throw a tantrum on the floor of whatever store we were in (followed of course by her popping me on the backside for acting up in public) . But she was enjoying herself so I didn’t remind her.

She was visibly pissed when I left town, as evidenced by her telling me off (which she hadn’t done in a year or two to that degree) & in between lectures on how I could live my life better she said she wished I would come when she was capable of doing more. To be clear the mall trip tired me out & I’m used to breathing much thinner air! But that was how she was. She liked to go do things.

She was also adamantly optimistic. She really believed that in a few months they’d get her lungs straightened out & the cancer would be under control & shed be able to do more. In early May of 06 she had told me that they (her & Danny) were thinking of riding down to Charleston in a few weeks.

After I left her breathing remained about the same, but the meds she had been taking had cut back on her immune system & the cancer was growing again. Not just growing but spreading.

I got a call in March from Maria (Frankie’s sister) that she was in the hospital again & that Id better come if I wanted to see her alive. Turned out to be a false alarm (as far as her demise was concerned) but the cancer & her lungs were wearing her down. Shed lost vision in her right eye because the tumor they had lasered was growing again & her left eye was good on some days worse on others. That was a real shame because she liked to read (which is another habit we shared).

She took comfort in being in a hospital. I think she thought that the nurses & doctors were right there & could keep her safe. She also liked chemo. Not the side effects to be sure, but she hated to go without it cause she was scared the cancer would come back on her if she went too long.

But they let her out after about a week. I believe it was the week after that Danny took her driving up to Boone & she got to see some snowfall.

Frankie loved Pensacola Florida. Gulfbreeze actually, which was where she lived from the time I was 16 to the time I was 29. She missed it & would have moved back on a moments notice, but Danny wanted to be closer to his aging mother & she knew she needed to be close to Maria & Lisa. But she also really liked snow. Not cold weather per se, but snow. Id call her every time it snowed out here (which was a lot) & shed get all excited about it. She was also a weather channel addict & shed tune in just to see glimpses of the snow here in Denver. So it was really cool that she was in Boone when it snowed.

Danny is an ass, but not the malevolent sort of ass, more the ass that results from negligence or ignorance. I never cared for him much but I got along with him alright mainly because Frankie liked him & he was decent to her. He loved her. I assume she loved him. So I tried not to let my old grudges come up.

On May 4th she went into the hospital again. This time she was complaining of back pain. They found 3 tumors in her back along her spine. They started giving her morphine.

The family called me again & told me to come out there. Not just one or two members but Lisa, Johnny (mine & Lisa’s father) Carrie (Maria’s daughter; my cousin) & finally Danny.

A little about Johnny:

Frankie married him when she was 18. Later that year they had me. They had separated & tried to work things out when I was 2 months old (leaving me with Frankie’s parents who would end up raising me). In May of 73 Lisa was born. A few years later they divorced. The reasons are more or less family business & I wont mention them here but needless to say they didn’t get along well. At one point Johnny fought unsuccessfully for custody of Lisa & paid child support on both of use till we were 18 respectively. Johnny & I always got along as did Johnny & Lisa. Even Frankie’s parents liked him. Sometimes things between men & women just don’t work out though.

In '91 Johnny lost his mother to cancer. He didn’t sleep for days while she was on her deathbed & run himself ragged trying to do whatever he could for her. Watching her die of cancer was hard on him, perhaps harder than he’d admit.

My aunt told me of several times when Johnny would call or see her & ask about Frankie. He’d get visibly upset when the reports were looking grim. He told me a few times that even though they didn’t get along he’d never wish that (cancer) on her.

So when he called to tell me to drop everything & get out there I knew it wasn’t going to be a false alarm.

I cannot just drop everything & leave town. Reasons both economic & pragmatic preclude that. Id made up my mind to go see her but it took a few days to get on the road. Aside from scraping together the cash for the trip (I was just recovering from the last one) I had some mechanical issues with the car that needed to be addressed. So when Danny called me on Wednesday the 10th to tell me that Frankie didn’t have much time I was already packing the car & about to take off. When Lisa & Carrie called again & cussed me out for not coming I was almost to the Kansas border.

I didn’t tell anyone I was coming because I was making the trip with a leaking radiator & a cylinder that either wasn’t working at all or only partially working. That left 3 cylinders in an 87 Honda with 243,000 miles on it. I didn’t want them to tell Frankie I was coming & end up broken down someplace in Oklahoma. & they would have told her. More specifically if Danny would have heard they’d have told her & they’d have told Danny. I didn’t see any point in getting her hopes up or having her worry about me on the trip. Besides, I fully expected to get a call when I was in Tennessee or Oklahoma telling me shed passed. No need in making them feel bad for me that I didn’t make it despite trying.

I made the trip in 2 days instead of the usual 3. 15 hours on the first leg & 13 on the second. I would have tried it in one but halfway through Oklahoma I had a problem with one of my contacts & had to stop for the night to straighten it out. The whole trip I kept hearing this old Skynyrd tune in my head. Its called Was I Right Or Wrong? & if you listen to it you’ll understand why (here's a vid but the sound isn't great). Well it alternated between that & this Vince Gill tune called Go Rest High On That Mountain (here's the vid - I still get a litle weepy when the harmonies kick in).

I told my sister I was on the way on the 2nd day & why she couldn’t tell anyone so I think she kept things quiet. I got to her house in Denver N.C. around 1 a.m. EST on Friday morning. After 3 hours of sleep (I had 5.5 the night before in a hotel in Russellville, Arkansas) we were on our way to the hospital.

When we got there she had just been taking down to radiation. At that point they didn’t think they could get rid of the cancer, but shrinking the tumors might ease her pain. She had 5 treatments over 4 days & it seemed to help for a while.

An hour later they wheeled her bed back in the room & we had the exchange that opened this tale.

Everybody was kind of hushed when she said that she knew what my visit meant, & somehow got even quieter when I confirmed it with a yeah. When I was 18 I told Frank (Frankie’s father) that the doc said he had a few hours to live. The family wouldn’t do it. Ditto with Jean (Frankie’s mother) although the circumstances were slightly different. So they were worried that Id tell her things they didn’t think she should be bothered with. & I did.

They cleared out & Frankie & I talked for a while.

Who called you to come out here?
Everybody. Lisa, Maria, Johnny even Carrie called & cussed me out cause she didn’t think I was coming
What’d they say? Did they tell you how much time I’ve got?
(12 equals 100, 15 equals 200, etc)
No; no ones said anything about time, just to get out here quick. They wouldn’t tell me anyway they’d be scared I'd tell you. When Frank died they said he had a few hours left. No one would tell him so I went in & told him what the docs had said. He just looked at me & said Is that right? & lived about 15 16 hours longer than they thought, just to piss them off.
She smiled a little at that.
Where’d everyone else go?
I ‘spose they’re outside so we can talk. They think were mad at each other.
Why would they think that?
Cause of the way we argue all the time I guess.
hmmmm
I do love you Frankie
I love you too Michael
(18 gets me 300, 31 is 600)

That was the first time I can recall her telling me she loved me. That was just the way we were not overly emotional with each other.

Lisa came in at some point. After a few minutes I left so they could talk. Had to have a smoke anyway. Turns out there were designated smoking areas other than just being outside. If it seems irreverent that Id smoke while my mother is dying of cancer I smoked before she had it & Ill smoke after. My family is et up with cancer. I’ve lost a great aunt, grandmother, uncle & now mother to it. If I live long enough Ill have it. Smoking has nothing to do with it. Cancer is genetic. Certain things such as smoking can accelerate it (or appear to) in some people but it doesn’t cause it. Frankie never smoked. She hardly ever drank & you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’s ever heard her cuss. But she had cancer.

They had all told me I wouldn’t recognize her. I didn’t really believe them till I saw her.

Frankie was always small. As Grady (a bass player I used to work with, & a good friend) said about Frankie & Maria they’re petite little ladies. She might have been 120 before the cancer but Id guess closer to 110 or 115. Over the past year her face had been a bit puffy cause of the steroids she was on. & she was very concerned about her appearance. No one but Danny had ever seen her without her wig until this hospital stay, & even then she had a little blue baseball cap shed wear. She was very upset when she lost her hair the first time & had a panic attack when they told her last year that shed lose it again. Southern women aren’t the only ones who would react that way, but I think it hits them harder than say women from Colorado or New York.

Her face was swollen. Not in the bee sting sort of way but in the take off the mask to see Anakin Skywalker sort of way. Her hair was maybe an inch & a half long & grayish more than the brown her hair had been before the cancer. It wasn’t growing as far forward on her scalp as I thought it should either. If I’d have seen her I wouldn’t have realized it was her, just that the poor woman had a nose similar to Frankie’s.

That wasn’t the worst of it though. Her voice was shaky as were her hands. They’d give her Coke or Pepsi in these little Styrofoam cups that maybe held 3 or 4 ounces. I have shot glasses bigger than those. Shed take the cup in her little trembling hands & it’d take her a second to find her mouth with the straw. Shed take a sip or two then hold the cup away from her face & tell someone (usually Danny) to take it from her. She couldn’t sit up (or move herself at all really) so wed have to raise the back of the bed for her to drink. It was pitiful. The first time I saw her drink like that I thought that my ex would break out into tears as she saw it. The last time I saw her drink like that I thought my ex would still be breaking out in tears as she saw it. My ex really did like Frankie & to see her like that would have torn her up. I know it tore me up. That’s where the numbers come in.

12 clicks of the sight on my Garand will get me on target at 100 yards. 15 will make that 200 yards, 18 gets me 300 & so on. From the 100 yard setting its 3 clicks to 200, then 3 to 300, then 4 to 400, 4 to 500, 5 to 600, 5 to 700, 6 to 800, 8 to 900 & 8 more to 1,000 yards. Frankie hadn’t seen me cry since I was 15 or so. She saw me come close in January but close isn’t the same as actually crying. Damned if I was gonna scare her by letting her see her son weeping over her bed. So I would think of the sight adjustments for my rifle. Could have been anything really any simple math just complex enough to distract but not so simple as to not require thought. That helped me maintain my composure. If I were a mechanic I might have thought about compression ratios for my favorite car. I’m a gun nut so I thought about sight adjustments.

I had found a few spots to smoke one close & the other more open. So Id hang out in the room with Frankie except when I went to smoke. At some point I realized that wed been there all day, not just the few hours I thought we would. So I figured I needed to figure out what I was doing.

Frankie, I can go back to Lisa’s & get some sleep or I can stay here if you want me to
Whatever you want to do Michael
No its whatever you want.
Well what do you want to do?
I can go back to Lisa’s if you want or I can stay here. I don’t have any plans. I’ll do whatever you’d like. Do you want me to stay up here with you?
That’d be good
(12 gets me to 100, 17 would be 266.6 yards, then 23 would be)

So it was settled. Lisa took that as a command to stay as well. I wish she hadn’t. Watching someone die isn’t easy. But I didn’t try too hard to convince her to go home.

Johnny called & came by to see me & Lisa at one of the designated smoking sections. He said he didn’t want to see Frankie but he’d like to talk with Danny & Maria. I told him how he wouldn’t recognize her & he started crying which came close to setting me & Lisa off. (12 equals 100, 15 gets me to 200, etc)

He went & talked with Maria & Steve & spoke with Danny for a few minutes. Maria & Steve were in the family waiting area & Danny was in the room. He didn’t leave much. He may have been an ass but he did care about her.

Maria asked me to stay with Frankie while they went & got something to eat in the cafeteria so I told Johnny bye & went back into the room. Frankie & I talked a little bit. I remember telling her that it snowed in Denver the night before I left just a little but enough to see coming down.

I spent most of the night awake. Well all of it really. I tend to be nocturnal anyway & figured Id take the night watch. Danny, Maria, Lisa, & Robin (Danny’s sister) were staying as well but they were trying to get some sleep. Frankie slept most of the night too. Morphine does that to ya. But every now & then shed open her eyes & Id bug her about doing anything for her getting her a drink, adjusting her bed, etc

Danny was constantly bugging her; asking her the same thing over & over again. Usually he was trying to get her to eat. She hadn’t had much of an appetite lately. Morphine coupled with fluid in the abdomen & around the lungs will do that.

The fluid had started building up days before. Her belly looked swollen, almost like she was pregnant. Again this is on a woman who normally wasn’t over 120 pounds if she ever weighed that much. They also found more tumors. First they said five then ten then that her whole spine was eat up with cancer. The tumor in her eye was back, the one in her lung was growing as was the one in her liver. They never mentioned the ones in her brain.

I slept a few hours Saturday morning. Nothing fancy, just pillows & a chair. Luckily all those years on the road playing in bands taught me how to sleep even when it was less than comfortable. I heard Maria talking to me when she thought I was waking up:

The doctor said that Frankie’s lungs will get worse in the next 48 hours
What’d Frankie say?
We ain’t gonna tell her that!
If it’s about her she needs to know
Michael that’d scare her to death
We shouldn’t lie to her

I drifted back off to sleep.

Saturday was a good day for her, considering. The radiation had killed some of the pain. I don’t think she had any morphine at all that day. She was alert & talked a bit. Our cousin Doris came by. Doris was Frankie’s fathers niece & she & Frankie were real close even though Doris was a bit older.

I didn’t talk too much to the family while I was there. I shot the breeze with Steve (Maria’s husband) for a bit & I chatted with Lisa & her g/f Pam when we were out smoking but mainly it was just saying hey to folks I hadn’t seen in a while & talking about what we could do for Frankie. I do recall telling Maria I wouldn’t stay for the funeral; that I had to get back as soon as I could. She said she understood & was just glad I was there now & I told her I just wanted her to know cause I knew how they were about funerals & such.

Things are a bit fuzzy. I recall some conversations but I’m not entirely sure when they happened. Like telling Frankie to try to drink as much as she can so her mouth wouldn’t get dry. I went on to remind her that Frank said that when he was little the old folks always told him to drink a Coca-cola when he was feeling down. Course that was when they used the whole cocoa leaf. She smiled a little at that. I also remember telling her to not let Danny & me & everyone else bug her too much, but every now & then let us do something for her to make us feel like were doing something for her cause it’ll keep us from feeling totally useless.

I remember at some point she had me get her some coke & I helped her drink it (raised the back of the bed, put the cup in her little trembling hands, watched her as she tried to find her lips with the straw, took it from her when she had enough). My ex would have been crying. I would have too. (12 gets me 100 yards, 27 gets me 525, etc)

I thought about & am talking about my ex a lot because of well I’m not sure why. She got along well with Frankie & well we were close for a while. The dynamic of our relationship was probably strange, especially after we broke up. She had two cats & one of them got sick. Cancer. Fluid around the lungs. I helped her take care of the cat after I moved out. Hell, I spent more time with the cats then I did with her (she was a student, incredibly busy & traveled a lot. I even joked to some degree that I was never her b/f just her cat sitter) so I did it for the cat as much as for her. But I always tried to take care of her in some way. I cared for her that much & at some point when she saw me tending to the cat she said she thought Id make a good husband & a good father. Shame I didn’t make a better b/f but such is life. & maybe it’s that she liked seeing my protective side that made me think so much of her when I was with Frankie that last week cause since Frank & Jean passed I really hadn’t used it to any great extent except with her.

*I also thought of another ex but didn’t mention it when I originally penned this piece. She was an ex-lover, not a g/f, but the distinguishment is only technical. I felt as much caring from her as I have from anyone, possibly more so. But at the time I wrote this she had moved on to something else & I had kept quiet about how I cared for her. We were still friends & I didn’t wish to disturb that – she seemed happy. But I thought of her often & almost called her a time or too. Her voice always gave me comfort though I doubt she realized it. Besides, I didn’t want to risk breaking down in front of anyone, especially her. So I didn’t make too many calls even though maybe I should have. She was a nursing student & whenever she came across an article about some new treatment for cancer she’d send it to me. I never found anything that could help Frankie but the fact that she took the time & effort & had the thought to send them really touched me. & made me kick myself a little harder than usual for letting her drift away.

Saturday I borrowed Lisa’s car to go get mine from her house. I went by Bojangles (which due to its absence out here I regard as a delicacy) & grabbed a quick shower. My car is my life. I have my cigarettes in there, my phone charger, cds, rifles, guitar, etc & being away from it was nagging on me. I should have grabbed some sleep but I didn’t want to be gone too long & it was a 45 minute drive to the hospital.

I stayed up with Frankie again. She was sleeping but a bit more restlessly. Her leg would twitch every now & then. Shed wake up & we talk briefly before she drifted off again. This time it was Danny, Maria, Robin, Elsie (Danny’s mother), Lisa & me in the room with her.

Danny had a brother named Ray who died from cancer about 15 years ago. That’s partially why his family was staying up there with him; the other part is that they just always seemed nice. Elsie always grated me for some reason (& I think Frankie as well shed usually stay at home on thanksgiving & such instead of going over there) but she was always real nice.

Wes, the preacher at Frankie & Maria’s church was up there constantly. He’d go home at night but he’d stay up there for hours every day. Elizabeth was up there a lot as well. She was a good friend of Frankie’s. In fact she sang at Frank & Jeans respective funerals. I never could stand her singing way too much vibrato; reminded me of a lady singing with a tummy exercising belt strapped around her turned on high; always implied the note, never directly hitting it on purpose unless it was a really short one syllable word she came across but Frankie & Maria liked it so I did a good bit of tongue biting when she was around. At some point she started singing spontaneously in the room. I left very quickly. I figured they just thought I was getting emotional but it was to remove the temptation to tell her that I’ve heard two cats in heat who never really liked each other to begin with sound more melodic than she does.

Anyway I kept asking Frankie if she was in pain & she kept saying no. She probably was but didn’t want to let on. In any event she didn’t have any morphine till the next day.

I grabbed my sleeping bag from my car & spread it out on the floor by the window. Sunday morning I got 5 hours or so of sack time. Johnny had come by but Maria kept Lisa from waking me up on account of me needing sleep. Plum wore out was what was used to expound upon that from what I was told.

I got up & went down to the gift shop. It was Mothers Day after all. I never was good about getting Frankie things for her birthday or Mothers day or Christmas but I figured she might like something. I ended up getting her flowers & a little blue teddy bear that matched the color of the ballcap she wore in place of her wig. They had started the morphine again. This time a time release pill with 2cc shots in her I.V. as needed. She was a bit drowsy but when someone said something about the flowers she said they were pretty & when I gave her the bear she took it in her hand & said Thank you Michael. (12 equals 100, 37 gets me right at 720 yards)

That night her breathing was getting bad. More labored is probably a better description. I had a chat with Danny earlier about not crying in front of her. He seemed to listen as he cut down a bit on that afterwards. We also talked about what she knew & what she should be told. He claimed she knew everything. My main concern was that she had asked earlier when the doctors said she could go home. He told me that they’d talked about it before & that she didn’t want to die in her house. It made sense as they bought the home they lived in as a transitional one & intended on finding something they liked better. But he told me that she knew everything that he did & that they’d talked about it all & he was doing what she wanted even though he didn’t agree. For instance she had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order a few days before over his objections. Or maybe it was the form saying she didn’t want to be kept alive on a ventilator. I forget exactly which it was but he was trying to talk her out of it, yet went along when she put her foot down.

Frankie & I talked a lot, or at least often. Not usually about such serious things but despite it seeming otherwise we were as close as I’ve ever been to anyone in the family, except maybe for Frank & Jean. I’d have taken on the whole family hell the whole hospital if they tried to go against her wishes. Danny assured me that they were doing as she wanted so that made me feel a little better. But I was there now not just to cheer her up in her last days but to do whatever I could for her. Protecting her from the family trying to protect her seemed the most likely task.

Carol was another good friend of Frankie’s. She had breast cancer & was doing well but she had helped Frankie through her first bout & they’d been close to some degree ever since. So she was up there Sunday as well. Doris stopped by with Jennifer (her daughter, who’s about 30 & has Downs Syndrome) & Dion (her son who’s in his 40s now). Dion talked with Frankie a bit. I was in the room with them & he was reminiscing about her & Maria taking him to see Elvis back in 76. (Doris was the biggest Elvis fan but she was sick when he came to town.) Frankie remembered that & me saying I didn’t want to go because Bugs Bunny was coming on (I was 5 at the time).

While smoking I made some friends. One was a janitor who came round & swept up the ashtrays in the designated smoking area in the garage. Another was a fellow who was having hip surgery. Seems he was shot ten years before & there was a complication with the rod in his hip. Of course we talked about wound ballistics & that he should be glad it was a 9mm instead of something more powerful. He asked why I was there since I didn’t seem sick or medical & I told him I was visiting my mom. He asked if shed be in there long & I told him shed be going home any day now. (15 gets me to 200 & 29 puts me on at 560 yards)

I came back from smoking & everyone was in the hall. I thought she might have passed while I was gone. I asked Maria & she just said they were changing her colonoscopy bag. I started to walk in & Maria told me it smells horrible in there. I went in anyway wondering how many times Frankie changed my diaper despite the smell. When Lisa came back in the room I asked her to crush up some of the flower pedals behind her & put them on Frankie’s chest. She asked why & I told her it might make her smell the flowers instead of the contents of her colonoscopy bag. No idea if it helped or not as Frankie seemed to be asleep.

That night I got into it with Danny. Or came close. Actually I came close to snapping his neck. Frankie was awake at some point & Danny was asleep in a chair beside her. I talked to her a bit & she was having trouble getting words out. I asked if she was in pain & she said no. I had her squeeze my fingers as I place them inside her palm & was about to make sure she wasn’t hurting when Danny woke up & started pestering her. Asking a bunch of questions rapidly & saying huh before moving on to the next as she was struggling to answer. He had crowded between her & I & I leaned over to try to calm him down a little.

She’s having trouble talking so try to ask her things that she can say yes or no to.
Huh? WhaMicheal would you just shut up a minute I’m trying to talk with my wife!

Danny is about my height. He has a big belly & isn’t in great physical shape. Very quickly I reasoned that me going to jail for snapping him in two wouldn’t help Frankie. It would have been easy though.

Maria, Frankie’s having trouble saying big words. Try to get Danny to just ask her yes or no questions.
I ain’t saying nothing. Its been Frankie & Danny for a long time & I’m not getting in the middle of it.

I left, thinking of Danny laying unconscious beside the window I would miss throwing him out of on purpose.

That morning (Monday the 15th) the docs came in & said she had a few hours. If she hadn’t heard the docs saying it shed have guessed from the way everyone got up around her bed & started telling her they loved her & crying.

I called Johnny around 6 a.m. & told him what the docs had said. He was torn up & asked if he could do anything. So I told him to call my ex & let her know what was going on. Gave him the number & told him to tell her not to call me. She & I hadn’t spoken in months & I didn’t want this to be the reason we started talking again. Besides I think she’s pretty much done with me & it’d be best to leave her alone for me as well as her. But she liked Frankie & always asked about her & told me to let her know how she was even when it didn’t seem like wed be talking again. Id asked Lisa to call her the night before but she didn’t get around to it. & Johnny & her got along well so I figured it’d give him something to do & not be so much a shock coming from him.

I had my phone off. A few phones rang earlier that day & even though mine was set to vibrate instead of ring I just shut the damn thing off. Besides the alarm kept going off randomly & I didn’t want Frankie to hear a series of beeps right before she went. So I didn’t hear the phone ring when my ex called & left me a message. I doubt Id have answered anyway; it was hard enough listening to her message. She was very sad about the whole thing.

I called Grady as well. Frankie always asked about him, more than any of the other musicians I played with. He was close to her age & a charmer as she put it. He & I were real close for a long time & he had lost his mother to cancer when he was 16 or so. He never answers his phone so I left a message & he left one back. I can’t remember if I told Frankie about him calling or not. She was asleep & I don’t know if she would have heard, but she was always glad when I told her about talking with Grady. I think she was hoping he’d find me a gig in the Carolinas so I could move back, but she might have just liked hearing about him as he was doing well down in Myrtle Beach.

At some point early that morning (but after the docs came in) Frankie woke up a little. She had been sleeping but she suddenly popped open her eyes & arched her back a little. Danny grinned & said look at that! She’s trying to get up. The second time she did it (a few minutes later) I realized she was in pain. I should have had them call the nurse & get her some morphine but really I was too shocked that she was hurting that bad & that Danny couldn’t see it. He desperately didn’t want to lose her, not just cause he cared about her but he was co-dependant on her.

Another doc walked in a second later (literally) & asked how she was. I immediately blurted out that she was in pain while Danny was trying to say she wanted to get up out of the bed. She lurched again as she had before & the doc called for a nurse to install a morphine drip. She didn’t seem to hurt again after that. 2ccs an hour kept her asleep.

I asked Maria about some water or lip balm for Frankie so her lips wouldn’t get dried out as she seemed to be breathing through her mouth. Maria just said that Frankie was fine in a way that I knew. Maria had about as much sleep as I did & wasn’t at all happy about losing her sister. She didn’t think anything else could be done & didn’t want to be reminded of it.

Later that day Danny decided to move her a bit. The day before she asked him to move her closer to the center of the bed & she had drifted to her right since then. When he moved her he did something to her leg & she opened her eyes. So he did it again telling her how happy he was to see her pretty eyes open. I quietly said that she was in pain when he did that & he stopped. If he’d have tried again Id have snapped his hand off at the wrist.

She slept. Her breathing was in a strange rhythm. Two or three short breaths followed by a long one then a slightly longer than usual pause between them. But it was steady. I just watched her breath, ignoring what anyone else was talking about. (16 gets me to 233.3 yards, 52 puts me on at 925, 47 gets me 867.5 yards)

Now we were involved in our final argument whether I could stay awake longer than she could stay alive. I had a total of 16 hours of sleep since I left Colorado 5 days before. Id been awake since around noon the day before & I was tired as hell. But I wanted to stay awake, not so much to see her last breath (there are a few people whose last breath Id like to see, but Frankie wasn’t one of them), but to make sure she didn’t need anything up to that. & partly to make sure Danny didn’t do something damn fool like take her off the morphine to talk with her again or see her open her eyes or something. I don’t think he would have ever done anything to intentionally hurt her. Negligently is another story.

Around 6 p.m. or so she won. I had my sleeping bag propped up beside where I was sitting. Except for that nap on Saturday morning I had been sitting on the floor to the right side of her bed against the cabinet where the sink was. Not sure if I was more like a statue or a watch dog as that had been my spot since I arrived & Id sit there for hours just watching her, waiting to see if she needed anything. I put on my shades & leaned my head over on the bag & slept for about 2 hours. When I woke up she was still breathing. There was a longer pause though between that long breath & the shorter ones. Two, sometimes three second would go by. & my heart stopped every time she paused like that, thinking it was the last pause shed take.

I guess while I was asleep someone asked a nurse & she brought in a little foam sponge on a stick cause I saw Danny & then Lisa wiping her lips with it. It was just water but it kept her lips from chapping as she breathed through her mouth. I doubt seriously that Frankie would have noticed chapped lips. I hope the morphine made her unaware of anything but the dreams she was having about horses or Elvis or whatever else she dreamed about. But she would have wanted us to keep her lips from chapping, so we did.

Watching someone breathe is not easy, especially when they’re having trouble doing it. But I watched, like we all did. Occasionally someone would talk to her or to each other. Both of Maria’s children were there (her son Chris had flown in from New York on Saturday), Maria’s sister-in-law Trina & her daughter Jennifer, Wes, Danny, Elsie, Carol, Maria, Steve, Elizabeth, Pam, Lisa & me. It was a roomful to say the least. Around midnight I went down for a smoke but decided to grab something to eat first. A couple of slices of pizza & a cigarette later & I was back in the room.

Her breathing was different. One long breath, then a pause, then another long breath, then a pause. I started counting the pauses. Three, four, sometimes five seconds. Danny was barely awake beside her, holding her hand. She sounded a bit congested so I asked Danny if there was anything the nurses could do to clear it up. It wasn’t the fluid on her lungs, it just sounded like she needed to cough & I figured the morphine was making her too weak to cough. I knew they had done something to clear out her air passages before but Danny said there wasn’t anything that could be done. Maria was stirring a bit by then & noticed the pause. This was longer; maybe seven or eight seconds. Maria woke up Lisa & Steve jerked awake & everyone rushed to the bedside. I counted to ten & knew I could keep counting forever. I didn’t need to recite sight adjustments in my head anymore.

I left, rather quickly. I went to the waiting room to see if any family was in there, then went back to grab my sleeping bag. Someone, I forget who told me that she was gone. I was pretty choked up & just said I know as I walked out. It was 1:30 a.m. E.S.T. She made it around 20 hours longer than the docs thought. Frank would have been proud.

Frankie Jean Harrington Webster was born on Valentines Day of 1953. Cancer got her in January of 2001 but she didn’t accept it till the Tuesday after Mothers Day of 06.