Last Moments…

 

The nurse looked at me as I sat on the side of the bed, her eyes compassionate. “Do you want to take off the necklace, or would you like me to?”

Her voice registered in my ears, but it took a few moments for the words to sink in.

I stared at my younger brother’s body, lifeless and gray. It had been less than five minutes since they pronounced him, and still, I had not quite wrapped my brain around the fact that he was gone, even though the proof lay right in front of me.

14 of 25…

I’m sure that if you have been following along with my 25 for 25 posts, you may have noticed that I veered away from the stories of our marriage and moved more toward a ‘lessons learned’ aspect. That was kind of on purpose. The beginning years of our marriage were rough, but there was a lot of good that was brought into our marriage through those rough years. And as I said back in 7 of 25, those years were just preparing us for the heavy seas we would be set upon in our teen years…

Or as I like to call them:

How Are You Doing?

I get asked many questions during the day. “What’s up?”, “Can I get you anything else?”, “What would you like?”, “Large or extra-large?”, “Can you please stop bothering me?”, “Why do you have to be so weird?”, “What’s with all the stalking you do?”….

You know.. normal things.

However, in my life, there is one question that beats them all. One question that if I am never

The Last Breath

It was just after 11am as I recall. I had been at work when I got the message. Walking back onto the grounds of the same hospice I had been at only 6 years earlier when I watched my brother pass away was a task of Herculean effort as every memory from that month flooded back into my brain like a lightning bolt crashing into the ground. This time, however, it was for my father-in-law. Not easier, just different.

I walked past the screened-in patio where I spent many nights with my family during the last days of my brother’s life. The only reprieve I had in the storm of emotions that was ripping through me was that I did not have to go into that particular building. So, I passed by, glimpsing over one last time as I walked into the building opposite, crossed the family room and walked into the room where my father-in-law was.

Here Lies Death

I have heard the following quote used by many people over the course of my life:

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” ― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Might I just say, I totally disagree with it. Emphatically.