[Dialogue] Kate St. Clair

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Shelley Hahn posted the following on the OE list and
asked that it be posted on the ICA list. Doris Hahn


Andy St. Clair has asked me to post to the OE list the
message that he 
posted 
to the 2nd Generation email list last week.  This
message appeared in 
the wee 
hours of Thursday, Feb 17th, but I think Kate actually
passed away on 
Wednesday the 16th.

If anyone would like to contact Andy, his address is
7820 N 6th St, 
Phoenix 
AZ, 85020.  I don't know Alex's address, but I'm sure
Andy would share 
any 
messages with his brother.

Here is Andy's message:

> My mom died today. She had been very sick since the
beginning of the 
> year- first a diagnosis of emphysema (news she
celebrated, in her 
Kate 
> way, with a cigarette), then a heart attack in
September, and lastly 
a 
> stroke this past Thursday.
> 
> She had been on hospice care for the last month at a
private care 
home 
> about 100 yards from my house. My boys, Mitchell and
Tom, got to see 
her 
> before we lost her to the morphine haze. She
squeezed their hands in 
her 
> one good one. Then she just sort of disappeared into
the fog. That 
was 
> Friday. Mitchell came over and played her a song he
remembered from 
my 
> dad's funeral on his guitar and they both brought
her a valentine 
> balloon which was still floating brightly and
hopefully in her room 
> today. She held on for the week without food or
water, subsisting on 
the 
> morphine and my reading aloud to her. The Lord of
the Rings. I am not 
a 
> bedside-vigil kind of guy, but it turns out I kind
of am.
> 
> Kim asked me last night if I had ever told her she
could die, that it 
> was okay to go. I hadn't. It seemed so obvious.
Like, how couldn't 
she 
> know? I mean, everybody else knew it was time,
right? But I went over 
> today and told her. She believes in heaven, so I
believed with her 
and 
> told her dad was waiting, your love is waiting. Go.
We'll be okay. 
The 
> boys will be okay and they'll remember you. I
remembered what Mark 
Doty 
> said to his lover when his lover was dying- all the
love in the world 
> goes with you. All the love in the world, I told
her. And she died. 
> Damn. She died less than an hour later.
> 
> It was just me and her. I held her hand. Her breath
came less 
frequently 
> until it stopped, and I held her hand and watched
the pulse in her 
neck 
> slow, flutter, and stop.
> 
> All the love in the world.  That's what I have.
> 
> Andy