Saying Goodbye
DAY TWO
By Staff Writer COLLINS CONNER
and Photographer JACK ROWLAND
An hour after Milton Howe's death on Aug. 11, 1996, Hospice counselor
Lynne Santiago, right, comforts Linda Howe at her home in
New Port Richey. In the background,Milt's sister Nancy Nickerson
strokes his forehead.
For nearly two hours after Milton Howe's death, his body lay on the hospital bed in the living room, the sheet pulled up to his chest and smoothed, as though he were napping.
Linda Howe milled around the room, numb and exhausted. The right side of her Bermuda shorts was damp from the tear-soaked tissues she'd stuffed in her pocket all day. Her eyes were red, the skin around them dry and cracked as parchment.
It was Friday, Aug. 11, 1995.
For 31 years, Linda had loved Milt, fought with him, endured his tirades, shared his hopes. She had nursed him, buoyed him, stayed near him as he died.
Still, she couldn't rest. "I've got to get through this ritual, the funeral, having a houseful of people, and the confusion."
She unfolded a yellow paper with the list of people to contact. She called her son Ray in Virginia. Her daughter Ramona in Hawaii.
"It's over," she told Ramona. "I've just been through two nights of being up. Right now I'm just worn out. Tell the kids this is a big day for their grandpa. He went to heaven. He's not struggling anymore."
She brushed her hand across Milt's hair, the gray tufts that had outlasted radiation. "It's the first dead person I've ever touched," she said.
In the kitchen, Dahlene Rall, the nurse from Hernando-Pasco Hospice, counted Milt's 231 unused pills and handed them to nurse Marjorie Bickford. She carried them to the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet.
Lynne Santiago, the social worker from Hospice, held Linda's hands and listened to her describe Milt's last moments. Dahlene phoned the funeral home and Milt's doctor in Tampa. As she talked, she stroked Milt's lifeless leg.
Linda and the others went outside while the nurse prepared Milt's body for the mortuary's "removal team." The two arrived in an unmarked white van, a married couple dressed in matching gray trousers, white shirts and black, practical shoes. They strode into the house like peculiar twins.
"He's clean," the nurse told them. "I checked him."
They hoisted Milt's body onto a gurney, wrapped it in a sheet and zipped it into a blue velour body bag.
The telephone rang; the answering machine clicked on.
"Well, guess where you're at!" Milt's voice sang out. "You're in Florida . . . And I can't answer the phone."
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