Michael the believer in Angels

Michael came on service late in his disease process.
He had been discharged from the Palliative Care Ward to die in his home.
The Hospital bed had arrived but there really was nowhere to set it up.
He was in pain by choice as he also wanted to retain his consciousness as long as possible.
Caring for someone in pain is something not for the faint of heart.
Once we were warriors. (!)

Battlefield: Michael's bedroom.
Manuveur: Setting up the bed and moving him into it WITHOUT his being able to assist at all.
Plan: Nurse Wonderful and I decide to use the sheet and his two sons.
We move the bed he is IN to under the window, as far against the wall as it will go.
We get the Hospital bed set up and move it alongside the regular bed.
I take my shoes off and crouch in the hospital bed holding the top right corner of the sheet.
Nurse W. has corner left top.
Sons are on both lower corners.
1-2-3- and we lift quickly.
Son 2 (the one on my side) gets a little vague on the concept and for a second or two I am holding deadweight alone. I bark and he gets with the program.
We quickly get Michael into the Hospital bed and as Nurse W. and I attend to him the sons
dismantle the regular bed and have it out in record time.

Victory!!!

After that glorious beginning the really tough part started.
Michael was devoutedly Catholic and had his rosary near at all times.
He had some beautiful iconic artwork on the walls. I admired it once or twice.

Michael was clearly failing. The sons were having a very hard time with him being at home so I tried not to involved them at all. I was the main person in there so it was easier for them.
Michael touched me so deeply by a single action.
He was in his last conscious day.
I very gently had bathed him leaving his feet to last.
I washed his feet and lotioned them.
Cleaning up I went to leave and said my farewell.
His hand went up and caught mine.
I looked down at him and he was staring right into my eyes.
He kissed my hand. Then his arm fell back down to the bed.

I was so moved.
Someone told me that perhaps it was the action of feet washing which was symbolic of service in the early church. Perhaps to him it had religious connotations.
I do not know. It does not really matter, the why of it.
It was a genuinely amazing moment in my life.

Thank you Michael.
You believed in Angels and now you are sleeping amongst them.
I remember you with a tug of my heart.

"... today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope."
-- from the Sanskrit