4 years
1,421 days
35,064 hours
2,103,840 minutes
126,230,400 seconds
Four years ago today my family was gathered in a small room. I remember there was a window, but it seemed so dark in there. My mother sat beside the bed most of the time. We were waiting. We had been waiting. For what seemed like eternity. It was a Saturday.
It had started the Sunday before. I went to the grocery store. While there I decided that after the groceries were put away I would go visit my parents to see how my dad was. I just had a feeling in my gut that things were not right. I had left my phone at home, but that didn't matter - they would be home. But when I got home my husband was waiting in the garage. Put the perishables away. They have called an ambulance and are taking your dad to the hospital.
Why? What happened? How serious is it? I should have gone earlier! Thoughts and questions whirled through my brain. Panic wanted to set in. My husband was so calm. His calmness washed over me. Hurry. Where are they taking him? How long ago did this happen? Why didn't I have my phone!
As it turned out, that was the last day we would have any conversations with my dad. I was with him and he was his typical self. Everything is fine. I feel better. Let's get this done so I can go home. Until the doctor said that he was in bad shape and had to be on life-support so that he didn't stop breathing. They were puzzled. What was this thing growing in his lungs? It was a mystery and it took days to solve. So we sat and waited.
My mom was not going to leave that hospital until she knew her husband was out of danger. We slept on vinyl covered recliners and ate sandwiches the churches brought for lunch. Friends would bring us hot meals at night. When she couldn't take it anymore she would power walk around the hospital hallways. No one could keep up with her. We didn't need to. It was her only escape from the dreariness of a waiting room full of people waiting for answers and the noise of multiple TVs on multiple stations trying to distract us from stark reality. We gathered around her to protect her and support her, but she was a rock. Full of faith and trust in God. No matter what.
We waited as they ran tests, did scans, consulted, questioned, and diagnosed. Then Friday came. He wasn't going to get better. He couldn't live through this. His oncologist cried. We cried. Time to take him off the life-support and let him go. We were all there. We gathered around his bed to quickly say our good-byes and let him know we would be ok. To give him permission to go. Only he wasn't ready to go. As the nurses realized this could take a while, they started to scramble (at doctor's orders) to find a recliner to put in that little room for my mom. They came bringing chairs for us to sit in as we waited. They gave us a little room at the entrance to the unit that provided us continuous access to the MICU. We had unlimited access to this place that was so strict with visiting hours and the amount of minutes you could spend with your loved one. No more two at a time, just be in there whenever you want.
We waited the rest of the day Friday. And Friday night. We waited all day Saturday. We waited together. All of us. Then, early Sunday morning, just before the world would start to wake up and get ready for church, Dad left us for heaven. It happened fast. I had finally laid down to sleep when they came to get us. I didn't make it to the room before he died. As I walked past the nurses sitting at their stations, they kept their eyes down, faces blank, staring at computer screens and charts, whatever, but not looking at me. I knew. They were grieving too.
God gave us so many miracles that week. My dad didn't have to suffer for months through treatments for something that couldn't be cured and pain that would go with it. I will always believe he knew there was something wrong and he did this on his own terms. I am thankful for that. This thing had been fast growing and it took him quickly.
When mom called his siblings to give them the news, his brother-in-law said he had been awake since four, just could not sleep so he got up and made a sandwich. His youngest sister said the same, woke up at four. He died about 4:20 a.m. Funny how God works.
I will be forever grateful for the way God provided for my child. She was at college and I had to call to tell her to come home. God had ordained it. It was freshman move-in day. Two people who love my child like their own were there to move their own little girl into the dorm. Caitlin went straight to them and they comforted and loved on her as her heart broke with the news I had to give her. They know who they are, and I want them to know what a special place they have in my heart.
I'm not normally a crier, but I am crying now. Not because I am sad. Yes, I miss my dad. I miss laughing at his silliness. I miss talking with him. I miss him constantly mowing the grass. I am also so very thankful for the testimony he left. For the foundation he poured into me. For the faith I have in God because of my parents. For how I have seen my mother endure such painful loss and move forward with life. For how I have seen her find her place serving the Lord by ministering to people who are suffering the sorrow of death. I am crying because of the multitude of marvelous things God has done for our family.
As the song says, "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future." Four years later we have been through a lot. But God. God has brought us through and we carry on until our own work here is done.
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