The Last Word

It all started at 11:45 on a Thursday. I was trying to decide what to do for lunch when I got a call.

“Jeff, you need to call home.”

It was Shannon.

“It’s your father. He’s in the hospital.”

He almost started crying when he told me.

I dragged my boss out of a Board of Directors meeting and told her I was going home and didn’t know when I’d be back. And not home, 2 blocks away, but home 2 states away.

That’s how it started. The rest is a blur.

The 15 hour trip with my sister and her 4 dogs in my very small car. Visiting Mama in the hospital waiting room at about midnight on our way in. Getting in at 4:30 in the morning and turning around and going back to Memphis the next day.

And the next day driving and sitting in a waiting room. Waiting for the short time they allotted for visits. Walking constantly. I’m not good at waiting, so I walk.

And the next and next a repeat of the one before.

Waiting and watching my mother. Her heart was breaking right in front of me. Nothing to do but say “Everything’s going to be all right”, when I didn’t even have that conviction.

She’s never looked so sad or old.

Nothing I said could make it right or even better.

Mama and Daddy were married for almost 45 years. Mama was 15 ½ when she went on her first date with him. That makes almost 50 years.

The blur included a deathbed scene when the lines on the monitors flattened out. The nurse was kind enough to turn off the sound and lead us in a couple of songs.

What happened in between, I’m still not sure. People were there from the funeral home to collect Daddy’s body, and I needed to get all our stuff out of the ICU waiting room before they turned out the lights for the night. I didn’t want them to have to be disturbed because they were likely going through the same thing I was. They needed their sleep, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any.

Everything that came before that runs together in my mind like a watercolor bleeding color into color.

I remember the phone call, the tremble in Shannon’s voice and the death bed.

I also remember the night of talking to Daddy before he left. He was still there. It wasn’t the final visit I wanted, but it’s one I’ll always have and cherish and that no one can ever take away.