The 5th floor of the Bruyere Residence in Ottawa is well known to paupers and princes.
Impending death has a way of levelling the playing field like nothing anyone can imagine. Nobody on the 5th floor was making plans for 2018.
My friend Jennette is in Room 508. It's a lovely room with a comfy hospital bed and large reclining chairs. The nurses seat her every day, looking towards the door; perhaps they hope that someone will come and see her.
She isn't like my friend Viggo who died there recently.
Viggo had a gaggle of kids, and his room was always filled with legacy.
Jennette doesn't have much family to speak of and so it is up to friends to visit her. We do so with checkered regularity. Most of her friends are elderly, and on the bus, and with the wind chill setting record levels, it's hard for them to get around. Her elderly stepmom, Lois, is determined to come, to hold her and tell her she loves her so, but the fates haven't been kind to Lois of late. She's in her 80s, lives half a city away, and has pneumonia.
And so Jennette sits there most days relying on the kindness of strangers, cherishing every visit, every squeeze of her emaciated 90 pound frame, every kiss on the top of the bandage that has become a fixture on her head.
We do our best, but Jennette is depressed and lonely.
Since then, she has taken a turn for the worse. She refused oral medication. She stopped taking her Ensure. She lost interest in her favorite shows, and even in her beloved nightcap.
And so she is here now, on the 5th floor, languishing, waiting to join Dad, Mom and Roger in the ether. Unable to speak, except with her beautiful liquid blue eyes, eyes that have seen a million sorrows, eyes that never gave up on love until just now.
But wait, something happened the other night.
For two nights running, she saw two cherished friends whom she met in her brief stint as a shopgirl.
Gudrun came by first. She walked into the room, and Jennette looked up from her slumber, her eyes glistening with joy. Gudren told her not to talk -- not that she could if she wanted to -- and they held each other.
Yesterday, Gessie came by. She walked into the room and, again, Jennette looked up, eyes glistening, and beckoned her over. They sat for a few minutes, holding hands, and then Jennette laid her head on Gessie's shoulder, and began to snore. Thirty minutes later, Jennette looked up, and saw that Gessie was still there, holding her, loving her.
She smiled, and motioned to the nurse.
"Boost!" she roared.
She hadn't had any nutrition since Christmas Day, after pining for her golden boy, and now she wanted to eat.
Jennette decided, she wasn't giving up after all.
It took cancer for Jennette to realize that love wasn't about blood, or men.
Love came in the most unexpected places. And from unexpected people.
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