May 3, 2008 – Jim, the undertaker came into the living room, where Warren and the rest of us were sitting, and said that Helen had left the house “feet first,” and he nodded and took the body out to the hearse.
  I’ve heard this often in the country. People come into the world head first and leave feet first. Warren nodded.
  Houses are busy after death. Nurses come and go, the undertaker comes, some friends and relatives rush over, John comes to remove the hospital bed, someone else is on the way to collect the oxygen machine. Food arrives, soon flowers.
   Bit by bit, the house is already returning to what once was called normal, although it will not ever be the same.

  
   
   Brandi, Helen’s granddaughter,  with Izzy

  Izzy always returns to a Hospice patient’s home after a death, and he lies on the bed, immobile for nearly an hour. This first happened up in the Adirondacks, and now it has become a ritual, something he seems to need.
  It seems to me as if he is saying goodbye, but I don’t, of course, really grasp what he is doing. He has connected powerfully to Berta, Helen and Warren’s daughter, and they were clinging to one another for hours.
 As often happens after a death, Izzy seems exhausted and deflated and a family member – in this case Roberta – came to him to thank him. “You did a great job, Izzy, and we can never repay you,” Berta told him. “Now, I’ll be here for you.”