An Errant Sputnik

“Yep. She passed.”

The nurse straightened, unhooking the stethoscope from her ears. With a single motion, she used the fingers on her right hand to push the body’s eyelids closed. She turned to look at the two nursing assistants in the room, one of them being myself, and I was surprised at her expression. It was the same numbness to the mundane that one might expect from someone disappointed that the vending machine was out of their favorite drink – a nuisance, but no tragedy. Protocol exists for death in a nursing home, so perhaps the apathy I registered in her was the best version of professionalism a nurse could have. Besides, I reassured myself, this resident had just arrived this morning from the hospital, and was never conscious during her brief time in the full-care wing, so it wasn’t like she had ever really had a personality we could attach ourselves to. For all intents and purposes, she was a corpse when she got to us. 

As a new Certified Nursing Assistant, I had never handled a real post-mortem care before. Up until that moment, the practice existed as a concept in my mind and textbooks. I had a litany of data points on what it entailed, and no practical experience to connect them. And while death was a naturally heavy topic for most, at 18 years old, I was eager to do anything I could to advance myself towards a career in medicine. I had just finished my CNA training program the summer before and had been recognized by my employer for being the top student of my class of 12; while I was proud of the achievement, that pride was dampened by the new heightened scrutiny of my supervisors and the new sense of competition from my peers. To say that my enthusiastic reaction to this woman’s death was inappropriate would be fair – but it’s worth adding the context of the pressures happening in my life at the moment that distorted the scene as an opportunity to prove myself. I am not a simple monster – I am a complicated one.

The nursing assistant next to me was from the same class, but had a refreshingly casual air about her. She had never been particularly competitive, which I attributed to the fact that her skill was natural and innate, whereas mine seemed to surprise people, or incite in them a desire to encourage me. Her confidence was earned – mine, borrowed. In that regard, we were peers, and so she was the closest to what I could call a ‘friend’ in that workplace. On the occasion that our schedules overlapped, we were typically working different wings of the facility, but today we would share in the profane bonding ritual of preparing the recently deceased for the next stop on their journey. Our entire class had been anxious to take this most final exam, and I was no exception. 

We received a brief instruction from the nurse as she removed a catheter from the patient’s body. I would take on the responsibility of undressing the cadaver and preparing her things while my colleague retrieved the essentials we needed to clean her body and prepare it for transit. There was no hesitance from them – the nurse walked out of the room, catheter bag in hand, and the other CNA followed her to prepare some water, soap, rags, and a fresh incontinence brief. I watched the door slowly swing to a close behind them, considering my isolation as I turned back to face the recently deceased. Something about being alone with a dead body gave me a feeling of unease that I assume is only natural, but my reaction to overpower it put my mind in a haste. I grabbed a pair of blue nitrile gloves from the near-empty box that had been mounted on the wall near the door, and willed myself to work.

The first step was to remove clothing and accessories in preparation for her bath. Bathing the deceased was a mandatory part of the process; it is true that most people have some level of waste pass through them as their body shifts during the dying process, and aside from that, the bathing serves as a bit of a ritual. It is a final act of tenderness from strangers as you depart, similar to the love a baby might receive in the moments of its birth from a midwife. From one perspective, being a CNA in a nursing home was similar to being a flight attendant. No ability to decide where, when, or how a plane travels, but along for the ride to make sure the passengers feel comfort until they get to their destination. 

I took my responsibility for post-mortem care seriously. Gloves donned, I stood over the departed and filled my lungs. Something about the taste of the air in the room was unwelcome, though I could not articulate the difference with words. Swallowing my observation, I began to work. With the blankets still pulled up to her collarbone, I reached down and pressed my hand between the pillow and her head to cradle the back of her skull. With a gentle lift, I maneuvered her to make the tie of her hospital gown more accessible and removed it with little difficulty. After pulling the grey and blue fabric from her body, I twisted it into a ball (as was the preference of the housekeeping staff) and tossed it into a hamper near the entry to the room. Next, her jewelry would need to be removed. She wore a gold wedding band, and a small gold cross on a chain – standard issue jewelry for most of the women I encountered at the nursing home. I was thankful that the ring came off easily, and placed it into a small plastic container on her bedside that would come to hold the few small possessions she had with her. I had a little difficulty unhooking the clasp on the necklace, and found myself closer to her face than I would have liked. It was disturbing to be close enough to a person to feel their warmth, but no movement in the rising of their chest and no gust of breath to greet me. 

After collecting her jewelry into the container, I gave her another once over to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and my eyes lingered on her mouth. Her relaxed jaw hung open, revealing a uniform row of bright white teeth. She had dentures, which would need to come out. I felt a tiny spark of unease, and quickly stamped it out with the knowledge that there was no alternative. Uneasily, I took a seat on the edge of the bed – a taboo action with a living resident – and took position to act. With a gloved finger, I reached into the open mouth of my charge’s corpse, gently hooking the underside of her dentures with two fingers, and another finger on either side of her gum line to get a grip. 

With one hand still inside her mouth, I felt a hot breath of air rush up my arm and against my skin, and the woman beneath me made a sound like a deflating balloon. 

My left hand, still clutching her dentures, flew from her mouth. I recoiled and pulled my right into a fist, arm taught behind my neck. My head pounded with the sound of my heaving heart just loud enough to awaken me from the instinctual urge to defend myself. For a moment in time, I sat next to her body unconvinced, fist hanging in the air. Motionless, I processed that her chest muscles had relaxed at an unfortunate time, perhaps from my shifting on the bed, and caused her to release her final oxygen exchange. She had not reanimated, but in one form or another, I still felt that she had tried to kill me. 

The sound of the door opening broke my trance, and before the handle was finished turning, my right arm dropped to my side, relaxing as another act of self preservation. A cart filled with items rolled in, followed by my coworker, whose smile told me that she had no idea of the nightmarish exchange she had walked into. I returned her smile with my mouth as I fought to smother the fear in my eyes, then stood, dentures in hand, and waved them in her direction. 

“Her bottom ones are still in, if you want to give it a go!”