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“Excuse me! Excuse me, Miss, I can see you! I asked for extra towels a half hour ago. Miss?” Sadie’s tiny voice barely reached the hall.
I stood my ground at her doorway hiding my grin as I studied her chart. The facts were undeniable. Sadie was an 86 year old Caucasian female, 5’0”, 95 pounds, acutely allergic to morphine, occasionally demanding, frequently confused, and suffering from end stage emphysema. She had been my patient for over 4 weeks, a fairly long stint in hospice. Deprived of oxygen, the synapses in Sadie’s brain had become a tangled string of fireworks randomly exploding, scrambling her neural network. As a result, science labeled her organically demented. Sadie, however, preferred to believe that she was a guest at a Holiday Inn; a guest who apparently that day, was in need of additional towels. Entering the room I heard her lungs racing to suck in air; air that her body could no longer process.
“Evening, Miss Sadie. It’s Dr. Burkhart; may I help you with something?”
“I should like my bath drawn and my evening clothes laid out. The emerald chiffon would be lovely; he adores that gown.” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes drifted away from me as if something more important beckoned her attention.
I felt her pulse. It was thready and inconstant, flickering like a candle that had burned too low. “Yes ma’am, the green chiffon it is. Where are you off to tonight?” I slid my hand over hers and held it gently.
“I’m not sure.” Her voice was fretful; her fingers worked the stark white bed linens over and over again as if she were kneading sticky bread dough. “I’m not sure, but I know it will be nice. He always takes me someplace nice. He’s here you know, standing right next to you.” She paused as if listening, then giggled like a school girl. “He’s telling me to hurry, that I mustn’t be late. He says we’re going home!”
My words were nearly inaudible. “Who’s here, Sadie? Who’s taking you home?”
“It’s Jack, my Jack, we were married 60 years. Look, he’s reaching for my hand!”
There were no classes in medical school to prepare me for that moment. There were no books that could define it; there were no rules of science that could explain it. Sadie’s life on earth would end that night. There were no friends surrounding her, no relatives gently weeping by her bedside – there was only me. I held her hand in this life even as Jack held hers in the next. I had known Sadie’s destiny that night from the moment I entered her room and heard her tortured breathing. I knew because I knew the science of life with all its molecules, atoms and sub-particles. It seemed that somehow, Jack, in another dimension, far beyond the reach of science, had known as well. Sadie’s final breaths were achingly slow, filling the room with liquid gasps. I stroked her hair softly and whispered in her ear, “It’s not polite to leave a gentleman waiting, Sadie. It’s okay for you to go. Jack’s been very patient.” She lifted her filmy eyes in search of my voice. And though they could no longer see, they crinkled as they always did when she smiled. She drew her last breath. When she exhaled all the events of her lifetime swept past me like crisp leaves caught in a blustering autumn wind.
Closing her eyes I pondered what a blessing it had been for Sadie’s mind to have created an alternate world for her; a world that transformed the stark realities of hospice into an innocuous Holiday Inn. Perhaps that fantasy had not sprung from her dementia; perhaps it was a sane option chosen by a lonely soul unable to face her own mortality. Perhaps, it had simply been Sadie’s choice.
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FEATURE STORY 
