Last Tuesday

Last Tuesday began with another early phone call from my Aunt Beverly.

"His breathing has changed", she told me.

I rushed to the hospital. This was becoming routine and it felt as natural as breathing to stand over my Papa Bud for hours a day waiting for that moment. Fatigue was not a word in my vocabulary last week as we stood watch over this wonderful man.

I entered his room, not knowing what I would find.

Papa was resting but his breathing had changed. His mouth was open and he was almost gasping it seemed for breath.

"That's normal for someone with his sleep apnea", a nurse told me.

It didn't sound normal. I held him and just cried. He was suffering so much. I prayed for God to take him soon.

The day went by quickly. My sister, Raini, came and we all sat in his hospital room reading the Grandfather Remember's journal he had given me many years ago.



We laughed, we cried. It was bittersweet. A circle of love had formed around this man. His wife, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren had formed a protective circle of love that surely brought him peace in his last hours.

The Hospice doctor came in. They were going to increase Papa's medication for pain. Moma Jo decided not to try to move him home.

Papa's wish was to die at home not in the hospital but we were so afraid that if we moved him he would suffer. It was the right choice. No one had anticipated Papa would decline this rapidly. Or that he would be kept asleep for much of his last hours due to the pain he was in.

I suppose in my mind, I had always anticipated his death as something that would happen in his sleep. That one day we would be talking and laughing in his living room beside his chair, and the next day he would be gone.

I had never prepared myself that he might suffer, or for his memory to be altered. It just wasn't conceivable.

We stayed by his side until early Tuesday evening.

My mom & Beverly were going to both stay this night in the hospital with Papa. Beverly had been staying by herself with him. My mom wanted to be there tonight.

I was going to take Moma Jo home. None of us wanted her to try to stay in the hospital. She agreed. She asked the nurses to evaluate Papa for her so she could make the decision of whether or not to go home.

The nurses told her he was slowly declining. It could be days or hours. Only God knew.

Raini, my little sister who is a nurse, took Moma Jo by the hands. "Mama Jo, if its God will for you to be here when he goes then that is what will happen".

While they were talking I nealt beside Papa's bed.

I took his face in my hands and I kissed his cheeks. I whispered in his ear, "Papa, I'm going to take Moma Jo home. I will be back in the morning---but you don't have to wait for me. If you need to go before I get here it's ok. Papa, you are the best friend I have ever had and I love you so much. But I will see you soon. Promise me that you'll look over me till that day comes. I love you".

I kissed his hands and took one last long look at the most wonderful man to ever enter my life.

Me and Papa had a special relationship. Besides my babies, there was no one on this earth who I could love more than my Papa. He always knew what to say. He knew when I needed a hug. He just KNEW me. It was a bond that even as a little girl I understood it to be the most special relationship in my life. A part of me knew at that moment, that this was to be the last time we would be together on this earth. I took one last long look at him as I walked out of the room.

That was the last time I saw him alive.

He would die the next morning. Mama Jo was just a mile away when it happened.