Remembering while I can (Final)

At a quarter of noon the announcement interrupted the talk in the waiting room. It was a temporary hold on the scheduled noon visitation. Everyone was silent. The intensive care waiting room veterans looked around the room, knowing the inevitable outcome for some family was potentially, an outcome of loss.

With the announcement neither mom nor I said a word. I don’t even remember looking her in the eye. I reached out, as did she, and our hands were joined looking toward the entrance of the ICU area. Mom and I knew the end was very likely near. We had tried to talk about how we disliked seeing dad suffer. We were weary of his suffering. He was weary. We knew this visit would be even more difficult than the 8 o’clock visit.

A nurse’s voice came from behind us, “ Mrs. Mills?” We both spun around. “Would you come with us?”

One of dad’s doctors stood a few feet away beside a consultation room near the ICU hallway. We arose as the nurse held my mom’s arm and ushered us respectfully into the comfortable, but small room. As the nurse closed the door the doctor relayed what we knew, already. Dad had been very, very sick. The cancer was not one that could be treated effectively. He had valiantly fought the fight for a month. He lost the battle a few moments ago. I’m sorry.

I remember a few tears. My lips were pressed together in an effort to squelch some of my emotion. I held my mom’s hand. She asked a few more questions. I wondered what the loss of my father at 24 years old would mean for me. I wondered how many children of mine, he would not ever hold, or laugh with. I had so wanted him to see me fully recover from my adolescence. (I still remember the day I told him I was going to study ministry. I thought he was either going to laugh, because he thought it was a joke, or reprimand me for not thinking through my decision.)

After a few moments we were invited back to the ICU where the flesh that once held the spirit of my father lay, now in peace. IV’s removed, still like a sleeping child, the body of my dad. We cried … as I do even today.

No set of days in my life have shaped me as those in the three months of February to April of 1980. My father surely shaped me all of my life and even today, some 28 years after he left his body behind.

Thanks dad! I love you!