Monday, September 19, 2005
FEBRUARY 7, 1997 IS OVER....
The dreaded day arrived. Bear was gone. His journey over. I stood motionless trying to gather myself to go wake Linda and tell her uncle Woom Woom was gone. His nieces had called him that since they were little things. Linda went through so much to be with him before he died and just made it by a few hours. I’m sure she was very happy she did, still not the amount of time she hoped for. I walked to the bedroom and called her……..she came quickly and we stood by the bed crying.
My senses came back in a few minutes. I called Becky and the Hospice nurse. She told me she would call the coroner and come right in to town. She lived in the country. Once she pronounced him dead she would call the coroner and get him ready for removal to the town funeral home. I sat numbly while we waited for the care of the dead to be completed. In a small town everyone knows when something unusual is going on. Our neighbors saw the vehicles and knew instinctively that Bear was gone. They came to offer any help we might need…….they called others to let them know.
By normal breakfast time Bear was taken away. The nurse called the Hospice office to come remove Bear’s bed, wheelchair and all of the equipment we had been loaned. They came sooner than I expected. By noontime you would have hardly known there had been a sick person in the house. Almost any evidence of Bear was already gone…….except for his bedding which I put in the washer.
My thoughts were racing back to the day this all started. His first seizure was on June 7th, we were told he had the brain tumor on November 7th, and he died on February 7th. It seemed odd that it was three sevens, God’s perfect number. I felt a warm comfort in that….almost as if it were a little message to me. This wasn’t some fluke that took Bear, this was all in the Master’s hand.
I’ll never forget the sweet peaceful look on his face. He never made a sound, just slipped through that last door we all must take and died with a slight smile on his face. It was his defining moment and for me it was the day I had been dreading. I took comfort in the knowledge that he was beyond any pain and suffering as all do who lose a loved one to a terminal illness. It was the only thing I had to hang on to during the next trying weeks.
Of course we had many visitors and good, loving folks from all over town came to offer their condolences. I love the way a small town takes care of it’s own. It is rejoicing in your successes and sorrowing over your losses. It is the best of human response when there is trouble……
Becky and Linda pampered me all day, not letting me do anything, to allow me to visit with our callers. The girls each called family members for me and took care of the daily tasks. They were certainly a blessing at that time. In the afternoon, soft snowflakes began falling lazily down. Something mom used to say a lot was, “Blessed are the dead the rain falls on, but doomed is the bride.” Mom lived her life by all of the quotes handed down from her grandmother to mother to her. She said them so often that I picked them up as did Becky. I suppose they will go on until we are gone. I thought, “Well, it was too cold to rain so Bear had the blessing of snow on the day he died.”
We had so many guests that day it wasn’t possible for me to give in to my grief and start on the healing process. I was operating on remote and knew there would be plenty of time to deal with grief later. I would write about it, that I knew. It has always been important to me to write down what I think about events in my life. It is possible to write things you would never think to say to your children……and it leaves them with a look “inside” if you will, to the part of a mother they never knew as children growing up. Parents are also people. People they often get acquainted with after marriage and children of their own. There is an identification factor then that was missing before.
My grandson, Jonathan, was very close to Bear. They had become good buddies and Jonathan came that afternoon as soon as he could. Our pastor was here and the two of them noticed some deer feeding across the road. With the snow falling and the deer eating it seemed the world would go on in spite of our loss.
And so, after twenty six years, seven months, two weeks and four days, my life with Bear was over. I didn’t know what path my life would take now but I knew that I wanted to make it count. First of all, I had to find out just who Esther was. Esther by herself. That would take a long time and a longer time to find the answers…….
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
My senses came back in a few minutes. I called Becky and the Hospice nurse. She told me she would call the coroner and come right in to town. She lived in the country. Once she pronounced him dead she would call the coroner and get him ready for removal to the town funeral home. I sat numbly while we waited for the care of the dead to be completed. In a small town everyone knows when something unusual is going on. Our neighbors saw the vehicles and knew instinctively that Bear was gone. They came to offer any help we might need…….they called others to let them know.
By normal breakfast time Bear was taken away. The nurse called the Hospice office to come remove Bear’s bed, wheelchair and all of the equipment we had been loaned. They came sooner than I expected. By noontime you would have hardly known there had been a sick person in the house. Almost any evidence of Bear was already gone…….except for his bedding which I put in the washer.
My thoughts were racing back to the day this all started. His first seizure was on June 7th, we were told he had the brain tumor on November 7th, and he died on February 7th. It seemed odd that it was three sevens, God’s perfect number. I felt a warm comfort in that….almost as if it were a little message to me. This wasn’t some fluke that took Bear, this was all in the Master’s hand.
I’ll never forget the sweet peaceful look on his face. He never made a sound, just slipped through that last door we all must take and died with a slight smile on his face. It was his defining moment and for me it was the day I had been dreading. I took comfort in the knowledge that he was beyond any pain and suffering as all do who lose a loved one to a terminal illness. It was the only thing I had to hang on to during the next trying weeks.
Of course we had many visitors and good, loving folks from all over town came to offer their condolences. I love the way a small town takes care of it’s own. It is rejoicing in your successes and sorrowing over your losses. It is the best of human response when there is trouble……
Becky and Linda pampered me all day, not letting me do anything, to allow me to visit with our callers. The girls each called family members for me and took care of the daily tasks. They were certainly a blessing at that time. In the afternoon, soft snowflakes began falling lazily down. Something mom used to say a lot was, “Blessed are the dead the rain falls on, but doomed is the bride.” Mom lived her life by all of the quotes handed down from her grandmother to mother to her. She said them so often that I picked them up as did Becky. I suppose they will go on until we are gone. I thought, “Well, it was too cold to rain so Bear had the blessing of snow on the day he died.”
We had so many guests that day it wasn’t possible for me to give in to my grief and start on the healing process. I was operating on remote and knew there would be plenty of time to deal with grief later. I would write about it, that I knew. It has always been important to me to write down what I think about events in my life. It is possible to write things you would never think to say to your children……and it leaves them with a look “inside” if you will, to the part of a mother they never knew as children growing up. Parents are also people. People they often get acquainted with after marriage and children of their own. There is an identification factor then that was missing before.
My grandson, Jonathan, was very close to Bear. They had become good buddies and Jonathan came that afternoon as soon as he could. Our pastor was here and the two of them noticed some deer feeding across the road. With the snow falling and the deer eating it seemed the world would go on in spite of our loss.
And so, after twenty six years, seven months, two weeks and four days, my life with Bear was over. I didn’t know what path my life would take now but I knew that I wanted to make it count. First of all, I had to find out just who Esther was. Esther by herself. That would take a long time and a longer time to find the answers…….
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
