Saying goodbye to a loved one on their last day is never easy. This one is more difficult than the others I have experienced. Even the loss of my own father was easier. We knew that his health was on a steady decline. You see, cancer does that to a body. It takes the very core of you and beats it down to almost nothing. If you are lucky, and strong enough to come back from the brink of death, they call you a survivor. If you didn't make it, you were a fighter. But there are those cases in which the body has got such irreversible damage that there is no way to return to the vitality that once consumed you.
In this case it wasn't cancer. It was a horrible lung disease that leaves you weak and fighting for each ragged breath you can drag into your body. This fight is one that my Uncle Howard had to endure.
What if you had given yourself up to doctors who could replace your failing organs? What if you put yourself in the hands of God, and he wants you to come home? What if you and your loved ones had counted on this surgery to restore you to your former self, with just a few minor adjustments...and then it failed?
What do you do?
You resolve yourself to the fact there is nothing else, that the doctors have done all they can. The last ditch efforts have had no effect on your body.
You bravely concede to fact that you have reached your life's end. You have to reconcile and get yourself right with God. When you leave this Earth and meet your maker, you want all loose ends tied up in a nice bow.
People say that we were lucky because we got to say goodbye. But were we really? Yes we did get to say goodbye, to tell him how much he is loved. To me that was no consolation. I know that death should be peaceful. I know that he was surrounded by family that adored him. What I saw on his face was fear and sadness. I have never seen these emotions from him. It was gut wrenching because he wasn't done living. There was was so much more to do. He was supposed to grow old with my Aunt Ruth, to finish hope chests for the grandkids, to eat lasagna and watch more Tiger's baseball.
Knowing that his hours were few, he asked for prayers. Something he never really did in public. Prayers were sent up asking for peace upon his soul.
When the time came for the machines to be removed from his body, there were tears and broken hearts. Lots of hand holding and hugs. Although words of comfort were spoken, nothing can or will heal the emptiness but time.
Each person grieves in thier own way. Each person deals with the loss differently. Some are ok the next day, some will never get over the hole in their heart.
Saying goodbye to a loved one, to me, is not really a true end. You see, I have faith that being here on Earth is a privilege. That God has given us the freedom to explore this world before returning to him. For this I am grateful. I know that someday my Father will call me home. I understand the circle of life, that we all must die in the end.
I hope that people will talk kindly of me when I am gone. That the lives I have touched are better for me being in them.
Uncle Howard was the most kindest of people with a heart of gold. He would have given you the shirt off his back if you needed it. His smile and sense of humor warm my heart as my memories of him are replayed in my mind.
I hope he knows just how much he meant to so many people.
There will be a day when he is reunited with his loved ones. Until then, I imagine him fishing with old friends, drinking a few beers, and talking baseball with the game's greatest players.
Until we meet again old man, have a cold one for me, tell my dad I said hi, and cheer on the old time players as they gather for a pick-up game.
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