I am tore up, as we say in the South.
My best friend's daddy is dying. He's had an unspeakable time since Friday and told his wife he wanted to go home this morning.
She has had it with the hospital, too, so she told him if that's what he wanted, that's what they'd do.
He looked at her through tear filled eyes and said, "I don't mean that home. I mean my real home."
He's been a stubborn, independent man all his life.
And now he's a helpless, pain riddled old man. He's tired. He wants out.
Maybe, what he really wants is in.
I watched my own daddy suffer. It is a terrible thing to behold. When he died it was also terrible, this time for us - his children, his wife.
He was fifty-nine years old, same age I am now.
There are times, twenty-five years later, I still miss him.
Of course, being me, I have written about death. Sometimes about people I knew, sometimes characters in my head. But even if I'm making up someones death, there's still a little pang inside.
Grief is not pleasant. And most of us have felt it's sharp pangs at least once in our lives. I don't think it's ever welcomed, but it is sometimes embraced.
I've lost co-workers, a great boss, friends, and family to death.
I've even come close to dying a few times myself. Once it was peaceful, once it was not.
Makes me wonder how I'll go when I really go.
But the main thing is, I know where I'll be going.
Do you?
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