I first told you about my friendship with Petra in this post from January 18. Since then, her condition has deteriorated. She was having a lot of pain, taking large doses of morphine, and suffering nausea. So they switched her to another type of pain relief, but that made no difference. She was having good days and bad days, and on one good day near the end of February I said, “Let’s go to the beach.”
“The beach?” she asked.
“Trouville,” I said. “Sirius loves it there. Since it’s starting to be prettier out, we should take the dogs and get a place to stay…right on the beach so you won’t have to walk far.”
At first she refused. She thought Maurice would get upset and make day-to-day life more difficult. Plus, she thought I was doing it for her. She told me she was practically an invalid now and would be no fun. What if she was having a bad day and we were there at the beach and she couldn’t even move?
I said, “Well, you can have a bad day in your chair here in your living room or you can have a bad day at the beach, looking out the window at the ocean. Honestly, spending a weekend quietly reading and taking our dogs to the beach sounds idyllic. I don’t need to be entertained. I’ll rent a car, and if you’re not feeling well, I’ll scoop you in, put the dogs in the back, and drop you off on the doorstep.”
She demurred, but a few days later we were walking the dogs in the park, arm in arm. I said something about being stressed with all the admin for my kids and she said, “You know. I think you need a trip to the beach. Let’s do it.”
It was such a Petra move. When it was for her, she couldn’t accept. But if it was for me…
We made a date for the next weekend that my kids would be visiting their father, and a couple of days later I took the kids to Trouville for a weekend scouting trip. We stayed in an AirBnb with windows looking out over the beach. It would be perfect for Petra, I decided, and booked the place for 2 weekends later. We were both really looking forward to it. I knew which restaurant I would take her to if she was having an up day, and where I would get takeout otherwise.
But the week before we were to leave, she began feeling truly awful. She could barely even move out the Ikea chair that she now uses as a bed. (Too much pain if she lies down for more than a couple of hours.) We waited until 3 days before our departure date, then—both deeply disappointed—finally cancelled.
During the last two weeks, she asked me to take her to a few medical visits, "if I wasn’t too busy.” She wasn’t sure she could make it on her own, even in a taxi.
First I took her to a lab a few bus stops away for a blood test. Then I Ubered with her to see her palliative team (nurse, doctor and psychologist) to talk about swapping medications so she wouldn’t feel so awful. During this visit I began to understand how serious her illness was. She had to undress for the team, and I offered to leave, but she told me to stay. Before moving to her bones, the cancer had started in her breast, and when they found it it was already stage 4, so she didn’t remove the breast. Which meant the tumor was still growing. I will respect her privacy by not telling any more, but without her stylish, baggy clothes hiding things, I saw for the first time how sick she was.
A few days later I took her to have her body scanned. And three days ago I went with her to see her oncologist. “This’ll probably be the last time I see him,” she said. “He has pretty much handed me over to the palliative team, so this is just a formality.”
The doctor looked like he was sixteen years old, but was very professional. He told her the cancer was at 96%. He looked at the scan of her liver and said that there was a 10cm mass and that her liver was starting to fail - that’s why she was feeling so awful. She said, “Give it to me straight. How long?” He said, “Weeks, not months.”
I could tell that took her by surprise. It certainly did for me. But I knew she was relying on me to support her, so I stayed silent and poker faced, just resting a hand behind her shoulder in case she needed the touch. He told her an ambulant team would now be taking care of her since she was too weak to come to the hospital. And as soon as she felt unable to take care of herself at home, they would transfer her to a palliative hospital. He told us which one would be the best for her needs…her needs being that she will refuse food, liquids and subcutaneous feed once she is unconscious.
We left the office and made it to the beautiful courtyard where the cherry trees are currently pink with blossoms, before needing to sit for a rest.
“How do you feel now that you’ve gotten that information?” I asked. “Are you in shock?”
“I feel kind of excited,” she said. “I know that sounds strange. But I have lots of tidying up to do. I want to clear my stuff out of Maurice’s house. Maybe you can take all of my spices and foodstuffs that I know he won’t use. And I need to plan for the cremation. You can’t scatter ashes in France. So I must plan for it to go to the place where they get rid of all the ashes.”
“I scattered my mom in France,” I said. “She’s actually in the Seine, the Thames, the Hudson, the Danube, and in the little lake in Central Park.”
“Ah, your mom is lucky,” she said, smiling, but didn’t ask me to try to sneak her ashes anywhere.
I asked her if she would want me to contact anyone for her. Family. Old friends. “No, it’s been years since I had any contact,” she said. “And I read that my father died a few years ago. No…no one needs to be contacted.”
We got back to her house, and I sat for a little while with her. “I’m glad the palliative center isn’t too far away,” I said. “It’ll be easier for me to visit.”
“What?” she said. “No…you won’t be coming to see me there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I felt slapped. “You’re not going to go there and die alone.”
“When I’ve imagined death, I’ve always thought of being alone,” she said. “I certainly wouldn’t want you to see me like that.”
This, my friends, is the only time I cried. And I tried to hide it. I’m not sure how well I did. She hasn’t had sight out of her right eye since her Stage 4 diagnosis. But I think that, still, across the living room, she must have seen the glittering of tears in my eyes.
“If it would be more peaceful for you to be by yourself at the end, then I will respect that,” I said. “But I would be honored to be there with you as you go.”
“Now you’re going to make me cry,” she said, and brushed a tear away.
“Just consider it,” I said. “I want to.” She promised to do that.
“You’re doing so much taking care of me,” she said. “I want you to take care of yourself too. Don’t forget.” And I promised to do that.
I took Sirius over to see her yesterday. Maurice is being nicer to her now that she is so weak. He gave me a little smile as I came in, then retreated back into his office. She asked me to walk her to the pharmacy to pick up her last round of drugs. Enough to last six weeks. She told the pharmacist she didn’t need several of the medications on the list. Now it’s just the morphine and nausea pills. It took a long time to get there and a long time to get back, even though it was just a block away. I stayed a little while longer and chatted about TV shows, books, anything but death, and I could tell she appreciated it.
I cried to my friend Tom in London on the phone when I got home. It’s the first time I’ve actually had a good cry about it. Maybe it hasn’t seemed quite real yet. He said the same thing as Petra - you’re going to need support from friends. Reach out.
My mom died of a brain aneurism when I was 32. I had spoken to her a few hours before and she was fine. I couldn’t get there in time to be there with her at the end. My father died a few years ago of Parkinson’s. We hadn’t spoken in several years, and I was very glad for that - my life has been so much healthier without him in it. But I wasn’t there at his end either.
Petra is only 3 years older than me, so she isn’t like a parent. But she is a human being. One who doesn’t have anyone else at this stage of her life. And I feel honored to be entrusted with accompanying this beautiful, dignified life as it comes to an end. So my present sadness is balanced by my feelings of gratefulness and grace.
Very powerful. I am grateful to get a bigger picture of some of your processing and finding peace. I’m very thankful for the quality of friendship you and Petra had. I appreciate your writing! 💕
Sending you and Petra much love.