hen our Will called death that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveler returns," he didn't anticipate my oldest brother, who not only returned but almost told about it, and undoubtedly would have, had he not had more immediate concerns to deal with.
My brother lived six months beyond his eighty-first birthday, not all that unusual nowadays, but a right good age nevertheless. He complained of ailments most of his life, but actually was in reasonably good health. Up to the last he could put in a full day of yard work, something he loved to do. Like the wonderful one-hoss shay, he went all at once. A "suspected" heart attack landed him in intensive care. Then came a "possible" stroke followed by "other complications," the name and nature of which the doctor learnedly mumbled and the family failed to catch, which may have been the intent. It is my opinion he just wore out.
My brother's family consisted of his second wife, the same age as himself, and two middle-aged daughters by his now deceased first. Beyond that was a host of grown grandchildren and any number of great-grandchildren. Throughout my brother's last days, several of them were camped out in the hospital waiting room, and they took turns sitting at his bedside during visiting hours.
After some days of doubt, the doctor drew the wife and daughters aside and shaking his head sadly informed them there was no hope. They agonized a bit and agreed that in accordance with my brother's wishes life support should be withdrawn. It was so ordered and a few hours later, the doctor came to the waiting room and informed them that my brother had passed away.
The whole clan rushed to his bedside for a final look, the wife on one side, the daughters on the other, the rest squeezed in anywhere they could. The doctor, sensing this was not the time to try to enforce visiting rules, retired to the back of the room with his clipboard and began filling out the death certificate. There was a moment of silent grief, and then the older daughter leaned over and kissed her father goodbye. As the younger daughter bent to do the same, my brother said something like, "Ah ... ah!" and began breathing again.
The doctor tore up the death certificate and ordered my brother, alive again but comatose, moved to a private room. There the family again took up its vigil.
In the wee hours of the morning as a grandson, who had been assigned the graveyard shift, sat nodding by the bed, he suddenly became aware that my brother's eyes were open and staring intently at him. He was, at the same time, filled with joy and confusion. What should he do? Call a nurse? Dash out to the waiting room and tell whoever was there? Phone his mother, the older daughter, who had gone home to catch a few hours sleep?
While he was dithering, my brother raised his hand and beckoned him nearer. "He's going to speak", the grandson thought. "He's going to tell me what it was like over there. Of all the family, hell, of all the world, I will be the first one to hear!" He bent over the bed and put his ear close to my brother's lips so as to catch every word. "Go ahead, tell me," the grandson encouraged.
My brother said, weakly but distinctly and with some urgency, "I need to shit."
When the sense of my brother's words finally sank in, and this took some time because it was not what the grandson had been expecting, he lost his head, jabbed the button to summon a nurse several times and then ran out to fetch one. By the time he returned, my brother had slipped back into a coma never to awake again.
What else he might have said, had the grandson not panicked, was lost to the world forever. Consequently, my brother, possessed as he must have been of such precious knowledge, instead of being remembered as the one who gave us the first eyewitness account of that "undiscover'd country", is relegated to the obscurity of a slightly indelicate family story.
