 |
 |
|
|
|
| FIRST
THINGS FIRST Welcome Family History Personal History News BUSINESSES
|
|
My Father's Last Steps
I recall the last day my father ever walked on this earth.
Here was a 76 year old, former police officer, WWII hero, and giant of a man in my eyes. Now racked with the disease that in a few days would take his life, he had been reduced to looking more like a survivor of the German concentration camps he had fought to liberate.
I rose early that morning as I did most days to check on him, as I had moved home to help provide his hospice care (or so I said, but my true intentions were to soak up every fleeting moment with him I could). He had the day before, unbeknownst to us all, ordered 150 more feet of oxygen hose to add to the length already determined to be enough for his "sick room". (He had moved from the bed he had shared with my mother so that he would not die in "her" bed and so she could sleep more soundly when not tending to him.)
I watched silently sipping my tea from a distance as he sat up and added the hose to the other. He put on his robe and slippers and took the walker and looped the hose over his arm. Slowly, shakily and rather painfully, he left his room and inched his way down the hall. I shadowed him without a word from a respectable distance not knowing his intentions. He passed thru the family room and slowly opened the sliding door which led to the patio and the back yard all the time playing out more of the oxygen hose.
He slowly moved towards the gardening table and picked up a pair of clippers I remained inside by the family room and watched as he headed to the rose bushes that he had planted for my mother 26 years ago. It was painful to watch his progress, I wanted to interrupt and ask him if I could help, but knew better. If he needed it, he would ask. I watched as he picked the most beautiful rose, and with trembling hands and much difficulty snipped it. Breathing heavily and exhausted, he slowly made his way back inside and down the hall to the master bedroom where my exhausted mother lay sleeping.
Again, I followed and watched as he slowly opened the door, and
silently inched his walker closer to her sided of the bed. To see
his face... the loving look he had on it as he neared her. His smile,
it was transformed...as if all the traces of pain had left his face.
He gently sat on the edge of the bed, leaned in and gently stroked
my mothers face with
Tears were streaming down my face, as I gently closed the door and gave them their privacy. I had once again been blessed to see true beauty, through both my parent's eyes. Later that morning my father, aided by my mother returned to his sick bed. I did not know it, but that morning I had seen my father walk for the last time on this earth.
Three days later, my hero passed on.
|
|
|
|
|||