The Man With No Coat

Aging well, Elderhood, memoir, vulnerability 4 Minutes

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Maya Angelou

He stood on the corner of the four-lane, divided city street, hunched over, his arms tightly wrapped across his chest. Thin and white-haired, he was a fragile figure, standing against the bitter cold winds of early December that lashed at his back and blew his hair into his face. He was dressed in khaki pants and canvas sneakers and a white, long-sleeved cotton or polyester shirt. The temperatures that day were in the teens, the wind chill estimated in the low single digits.

He had no coat. No coat, and no hat. No coat, no hat and no gloves.

I sat at the red light, warmed by the heater in my two-year-old van and by my warm winter coat with its cozy hood at the ready. My lined leather gloves were nearby. Safe from the bitter cold. I was headed home to Minnesota after a 3-hour drive from Madison, Wisconsin, where my world had been broken into a thousand, million pieces early that morning as my beloved had drawn his last breath. The man who was my soulmate, my best friend, my everything, had died just hours earlier.

Arrangements had been made to bring him home. What had begun as a trip together had become a lone return to a world that had grown strange. Hollow. The world as I had known it for the past 22 years was forever changed. Forever less.

Geographically challenged as I am, I had been doggedly focused on not losing my way on this unfamiliar trip. I had to get home so that I could plan a funeral.

I sat at that stoplight, still trying not to be overtaken by the pictures of that shadowed ICU where we had spent 5 days; not to hear the echo of the words of the 3 doctors on the last day.

“Mrs. Hendricks, Dwight has lost the circulation in his lower left leg and foot.”

I had known what that meant. I had known that the decision would be only up to me. I had so dreaded having to make a decision that was ambiguous, that had more than one option. Deciding whether the love of my life would live or die.

Now, I knew the answer as soon as the information was dispassionately spoken.

The doctors had quietly and compassionately laid out all the options, but there was only one that mattered. He was 81 years old. There would be no amputation. There would be no surgery to try to open the blocked artery. He had been on continuous kidney dialysis for 5 days. The only thing that needed to be done was to disconnect the machine that had been keeping him alive, three days a week, for the past 13 months.

I had been constrained so far by my shock.

Then, I had heard my words as if they were echoing from some faraway, imaginary place, outside myself. Quiet. Composed. They would mean a quiet and painless death.

“Turn off the machine.”

I sat on his bed for hours, then, talking to him quietly. Praying. Watching him. Watching the monitor. Waiting for the wavy lines to straighten. He had been given a strong sedative for the excruciating pain that accompanies artery blockage, so there would be no last words that he would utter. We had spoken them all earlier.

He was so frail, this vital, outgoing man, so quiet. Just awaiting his time.

I played his favorite two hymns on my Nook, sung by his favorite gospel singer, Wintley Phipps: “It is Well with my Soul,” and “Just As I Am.” With each one, his eyes opened in disbelief, his mouth dropped in amazement. At the end of each one, he settled back into rest. Waiting.

I told him it was alright for him to go. At 12:37 am, I watched his last exhale, waited for the next breath, and held my breath waiting for the long, high-pitched sound from the monitor that would tell me. Like in the movies.

There was only the silence. There was no more inhale of precious, earthly, life-sustaining air. It was over.

Everything that had held me together in those 5 days in the ICU let go. Every thread of courage, every longing of hope lay motionless in that sad, dark room. And I became someone I had never known before.

I wailed into the night. “Keening,” they call it. The male nurse that had taken care of my beloved the past 3 days came into the room and rested his hand gently on my shoulder. The sound of my grief, that indescribable rending of the frail fabric of life, that knows no boundary, cut through the darkness like a long, sharp knife. Finally, it was done.

When I left Madison in a daze some hours later, I had taken his red, down-filled jacket which was still filled with the aroma and the shape of him, and I set it upright on the passenger seat, as if I could keep him with me for the long, frozen ride home. His gloves were in the pocket. The hood was attached for the coldest of winter.

As I spotted The Man Without a Coat, I thought of that hooded jacket, sitting within reach, the warm gloves in its pockets. He needed it. I should give it to him. Dwight could no longer use it.

I pondered how I could get it to him safely, across two lines of traffic. Or could I just call out to him and have him come to get it from me?

I looked over at the coat. That coat that was Dwight’s invisible presence to me. The light of my life, who was gone, but still as close to me as breath. I hesitated, looking back at the shivering, freezing man. I reached for the coat, hesitating again. I still had not grasped ahold of it. Almost…almost.

I looked up and saw the man running frantically across the four-lane street, now out of easy reach. The light turned green, and I was the first car in line.

I drove on. I couldn’t let go yet. But I wished that I had.

His image has sometimes haunted me in these eight years since. Related by our different griefs, we would never know each other in the end. I look for grace in the everyday of life, but this would not be that kind of day.

Grief is its own kind of taskmaster. It makes us weak before it makes us strong. I had just begun.

Published by whitehairgrace

I'm Martha Hendricks, a once-reluctant elder who has made peace with my old age. I've been a professional singer, pastor, writer, decorative painter, introspective elder who still finds life fascinating. I chose "elder" because of its historical links to wisdom and experience. Time will tell if I have the former. I certainly have lots of the latter.

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38 thoughts on “The Man With No Coat”

  1. Tears here too for the grief you’ve suffered. Thank you for persevering through the writing of this post. Your conclusion is rich with wisdom, concerning the taskmaster that is grief, making us weak before it makes us strong. I also agree with Renee above. Our Jehovah Roi saw that coatless man; our Jehovah Jireh undoubtedly provided.

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    1. Thank you, Nancy! I do believe that when one person does not heed the call, God finds some other way to meet the need. I have seen it in my own life, when just the right person came along in the midst of grief and I have found solid ground again.

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  2. Thank you for sharing your story…so beautiful. It is a love story through and through. To love so deeply is a gift. I do believe that this man without a coat found a coat…Your heart was in the right place, wanting to give at a time when you were broken. It is a kind soul that thinks of others in such a moment. The fact that you were moved to compassion for another in the midst of your own despair is a moment of grace…in this hour of sorrow, you longed to comfort someone else.

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    1. You are welcome, CG. I am sorry for your grief, and I can also say that it does change us. We are given graces that we might not have gotten any other way. And they settle in, in time, to become familiar ground that holds us up. My best wishes for your journey!

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  6. I’m so sorry for your loss, even though I know it wasn’t a recent one. But that kind of loss never really goes away, does it? As for that man, I understand. Sometimes we just don’t have the strength to do what we know is right, and that’s okay. You were just beginning your grief journey….and now look at how you use your pain to help others who are hurting. You really are “bringing buckets of water to those who are still in the flames!”

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    1. Ah, Ann, your remembered that wonderful quote from another blog from a ways back! Thank you for reminding me of that. It makes this writing journey of mine all the more precious. You, too, are a bucket carrier, of course!

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  7. This story was very touching. Grief is so hard. And sometimes we just can’t do what we are not ready to do. I believe God sent another person to fulfill this man’s needs. I hope you find comfort in this thought.

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    1. Renee, you are so right. I do also believe that somehow, this man’s plight was met with grace from another source. God’s timing makes up for our hesitancies. Thank you for your wisdom.

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  9. I almost had to stop reading because it came way to close to my own experience with the love of my life, but I had to continue because facing the pain, remembering, is part of the healing. His grace is still abundant and it is His grace and forgiveness that keeps us going. Yes, grief is its own taskmaster. With Christ’s help we do overcome. Thank you for sharing your story.

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  11. Pingback: The Man With No Coat — White Hair Grace – A Blog About Healing From PTSD

  13. I cried along with you and in doing so my heart weeps more and less. As I age, my tears take me, once again, to places I didn’t know were inside of me only to recognize the inner landscape is richer in texture and yet more familiar than I remember. It seems that the more my outer world contracts; the more my inner world expands. And I am just now learning my way. You, with your writing, Dear Martha, are helping me navigate this new world of grace, forgiveness, & understanding. Thank you.
    Sincerely, Pattra

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    1. Finding the gifts of our advancing age has indeed been grace upon grace. And then writing about them as I open them up has made my elderhood far richer than I ever dreamed. You have captured that so beautifully, Pattra, and we shall navigate this new world together. Thank you so much for your beautiful words.

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  16. I say this without exaggeration….but I am running out of words. I don’t even know where to begin, so I’m not even going to try. Words are unnecessary, anyway. Simply beautiful. It truly touched my heart.

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