Husband's Tragic Tribute to His Dead Wife
Last month, 34-year-old Laura Levis died after suffering a tremendous asthma attack. Her husband Peter DeMarco has been posting tributes to her on his Facebook since she died, one of which was republished by the New York Times.
This particular essay from DeMarco thanked the staff at Boston’s CHA Cambridge Hospital, where Levis spent the last week of her life. “As I begin to tell my friends and family about the seven days you treated my wife, Laura Levis, in what turned out to be the last days of her young life, they stop me at about the 15th name that I recall,” he begins. “The list includes the doctors, nurses, respiratory specialists, social workers, even cleaning staff members who cared for her. ‘How do you remember any of their names?’ they ask. How could I not, I respond.”
He explains how the hospital workers were always respectful, compassionate, and kind, and specifically remembers how they went out of their way to ensure DeMarco would have one last hour alone with his wife on the day she died:
On the final day, as we waited for Laura’s organ donor surgery, all I wanted was to be alone with her. But family and friends kept coming to say their goodbyes, and the clock ticked away. About 4 p.m., finally, everyone had gone, and I was emotionally and physically exhausted, in need of a nap. So I asked her nurses, Donna and Jen, if they could help me set up the recliner, which was so uncomfortable, but all I had, next to Laura again. They had a better idea.
They asked me to leave the room for a moment, and when I returned, they had shifted Laura to the right side of her bed, leaving just enough room for me to crawl in with her one last time. I asked if they could give us one hour without a single interruption, and they nodded, closing the curtains and the doors, and shutting off the lights.
"I will remember that last hour together for the rest of my life," he concludes. "Really, I have all of you to thank for it."
Read DeMarco’s essay in its entirety here.
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