I cannot write a lot right now but will finish with this for now. I left Dan at 9:45 am this morning (California time), Friday April 24th, 2009. He was still breathing. One of the last things I did for him last night, was to cut his toenails. They were long, thick and totally disgusting. He really appeared exactly how he was, an older, alcoholic, homeless man. I felt really ticked off at him for not cutting his own toenails, as he kept a toenail clippers in his bookbag, and I told him so. I said, “Look, Dan, this is ridiculous, you could have cut your own damn toenails.” He was completely unresponsive today, totally out of it and no longer able to talk at all. So our last conversation was Wed., regarding him being aware that he got all his stuff returned to him in his room.
Anyway, I cut the dang, disgusting toenails. I had this funny thought, “Dan you can’t go to the mortuary looking like THAT!” I honestly didn’t want the cremation people getting his body with these long, disgusting toenails, some of which curled around the top of his toes, because it was very telling that he had no one taking care of him, and did not take care of himself. I had asked the nurses to do it but they ignored me, & I finally figured, “What the hell, I’ll cut them & be done with it.”
Later, I met Susan, the hospice social worker and told her. She said, “You are BOLD!” I said yes I am, but she told me that nurses will not cut toenails because of some liability possibility, and they have to call in a podiatrist. Our medical system is so screwed up, we could write an entire essay on that. Dan never would have had his nails cut because they’re not about to call a podiatrist on a dying man.
So I left Dan still breathing, at 9:45 this morning, and spent the rest of the day getting home. It has been so exhausting , there is a lot of emotion building up in me that I haven’t had a chance to let out because of always being WITH people, so a couple times on the plane(s) I nearly broke. It’s not that Dan and I were close. It’s just that a life is ending eternally, and Dan is a person who never fit into this world. How much is his own fault and how much is the world’s only God knows. Seeing him every day this week has left an emotional mark on myself and caused some sort of connection. Dan knew his family knew OF him. I don’t think he really believed that. When I first got there the very first day, the nurse at the hospital asked him, “Do you want to lay down now, Dan, and get some sleep?” and he said emphatically, “NO, I want to be with HER.”
As my plane landed in Columbia, back in South Carolina, I played a message from Sue and it said Dan had passed from this world at 10:44 pm. They had just called her as it was happening, and said they were “calling it”. They had come in to check and found him not breathing. So it probably occurred somewhat before that.
They say dying people wait for someone to get there before they die. I think Dan was waiting for me to leave. He couldn’t be “with her” meaning representatively with the family he has, anymore, so he finally quit. I also told him some of the family was already on the other side.
I was very happy to see my husband tonight. The air in South Carolina was warm, warmer even than San Diego, and there is a sweetness in the smell of the air, here.
Our brother, Daniel Thomas Agnew, died today, April 24th, somewhere around 10:44pm (South Carolina/ Indiana time), about 10 hours after I left him in California.
Doctor Grandma 
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