Death has a way of making things final. It’s not the kind of thing that waits for us to put if off until tomorrow. Nope! Death takes precedence to any plans in the moment or in the future, and brings life as we know it to a screeching halt.
It’s the evening before Father’s Day and I am poignantly aware of having buried my own seven years and two days ago before this once-a-year celebration of dads everywhere. I spent the night with my 88-year old mother last evening, partly in an effort to comfort her widowed heart this time of year. The other reason for our “sleepover” was due to an early wake-up call to be able to visit a high school friend of mine who is dying from a rapidly growing form of cancer and “mornings are better” for her.
Mornings are better? What difference does it make when you’re dying? The truth is, when people are so knocked up on morphine, they hardly know what time of day or night it is anyway. But lemme tell you, they KNOW what time it is.
My friend and I spent our adolescence together playing guitars and singing, writing songs and questioning life, experimenting with recreational excesses, and thinking we were invincible like every other teenager on the planet. As it turns out, being invincible is only a thought.
Cancer is ugly. There is nothing sexy or trendy about it. As I would learn, this is her second bout with it; she beat the first round of a different variety a few years back via chemo and radiation. But following a few strokes, a heart attack, a divorce, triple bypass surgery, and diabetes, her 59-year-old body has just about had enough. With hardly enough eyesight left to see me clearly (much less be able to read the text I’d sent to her cell phone when I first heard), she knew exactly who I was when I walked into her sister’s home to visit, and she stood straight up to greet me. Standing up is not an easy feat when death has been summoned within a six-week period of time and you’re three weeks in.
It’s always disgustingly simple to be honest when there is nothing else to be. Our conversation was rippled with her nodding in and out while remembering being younger and certainly on the front side of life as she knows it now. She is the mother of four sons and four grandchildren who will likely bury her in less than a few weeks. Her laments are that she won’t be here to help take care of them. It’s the kind of hurt that’s palpable and rips your heart right out of your chest as you listen and quietly concur because that’s all you can do. There’s no turning this thing around, and everybody in the room knows it.
And then she stopped and stared straight into my eyes while hers welled up with tears, and told me how grateful she was that I came to see her, that she loved me…that she has always been so proud of me and that I was always her dear friend. I told her I loved her, too, and how grateful I was to be her friend, and to be able to share this moment with her. She commented about time and how EVERY moment is so precious when you know you’re dying.
That last statement wouldn’t leave me alone for the rest of the afternoon and into this evening. The funny thing is, we all know we’re dying but we don’t think so somehow. Perhaps because the grim reaper hasn’t shown up just yet, we retreat to teenage repertoire and believe that, just for a moment, we are invincible. But the truth is, we should all take heed and stare people right in their eyes and tell them how much we love them and that we’re grateful to have EVERY moment we have with them. We should hug each other like we mean it more often and as if it’s the last time we’re gonna feel that person alive in our arms.
Today, I hugged my friend because I knew it would be my last time to do that. I looked into her eyes, clouded with blindness, and told her I loved her. I sat and listened to her heart as she told me about missing not being able to be here to take care of her grown children any longer, and I bid her farewell, telling her that I would be praying for her.
And I will. Just like I prayed over Daddy when he laid in that hospital room seven years and four days ago, drawing his last breath while my hand was over his heart. I told him I loved him and how grateful I was, and am, that he was my Father. We should do that more often.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. We love you and miss you.
Jan Smith
June 2017
