I don’t know what happened when I published my last post.
The post published, but the title of it showed up 3 times, then an error posted and now the entire Blog is gone.
I’ll try to recreate the final post.
Our Dubbie is singing in mansions of glory. He is standing strong, able to walk and run and talk again. At 12:35 p.m. Dubbie left his body and went to heaven. He breathed slowly and left quietly after 12 ½ days of laboring to breathe while Mother sat by his side. His eyes were slightly open and his faced turned toward us both, and it seemed as though he looked at us in those last moments. One of my brothers in the Lord, who also came to visit twice daily, was also there. Mother was so tired, in so much pain from her back problems and from grief, that she laid her head on the bed, face down for a few moments. Yesterday, the treatment nurse said all Daddy’s moisture reserves were gone, yet in those few moments, I saw a single tear roll from his eye down his cheek, and then he didn’t breathe again.
Every nurse, aide, social worker and administrator on duty who knew him came to pay respects and they cried. The first aide I met, Ruby, who came to escort him from the hospital to be admitted to the nursing home, was the aide who had the duty to prepare his body for the funeral home. She left us sobbing her heart out. The night aides were called and some of them came, off duty, to say goodbye to us.
Mother is so tired that she is almost ill. Joy and Mike arrived about 3:30 today, and Kak’s interview ended just before 2 p.m. today so she will be returning to our house soon. Mike, JB, Muffin and I are home with the twins and CB and Joy are with their Nannie. Mother told us lots of stories today—perhaps out of fatigue, or perhaps a need to keep the past before her and not the present. One of the stories, when she realized today’s date, was that every Friday 13th when Daddy was deployed for three years during WWII, she received a letter from him. So she always felt Friday 13th was special. That tear, the impossible one that rolled down his cheek in those final minutes, was his final love letter to my Mother. How he hated to leave her!
In mansions of glory and endless delight
I’ll ever adore thee in heaven so bright
And sing with the glittering crown on my brow
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
We have wonderful memories and loving friends and family. This evening, I had to be at a wedding rehearsal—the granddaughter of an old friend of Dubbie’s. The father of the bride told me that when he was a child, he disliked waiting downtown at his family’s business with nothing to do, so he would sneak away to the barber shop and talk to Dubbie for hours.
Details: Sunday, June 15, 3:30-5:30 Visitation at Hamil Family Funeral Home
Monday, June 16, 10 a.m., Burial at Elmwood
Monday, June 16, 11 a.m., Memorial Service of Celebration, Grace Methodist Church, North 14th and Grape Streets
2 comments:
That was so beautiful. My heart and prayers are with you all. Though I can't make it on Monday for obvious reasons, I'm going to try to get to visitation on Sunday. God bless.
I remember the morning after my father passed away well. I had spent the night at the nursing home with my mother after we finally got her back into her bed about 2:00 a.m. The next morning one of the nurses at that facility said to me, "You have been through the hardest part. It will be easier from here." I was totally baffled by his comment, because nothing about this was easy, and my list of things to do was enormous. I was exhausted in every way, physically, emotionally, and mentally. In spite of the fact that I didn't believe him, I responded to his statement with gratitude.
That afternoon, as I was working my way through my To Do list, I realized something....Even though the exhaustion was still there, and even though I felt like a limp rag emotionally, the heaviness was gone. The burden for my father had been lifted. I was worried about him no longer. In that regard, the nurse had been correct.
Because of your father and his life we have all been blessed. We rejoice that he is no longer lingering here, but that he is standing tall and strong amd has already beheld the face of Jesus. As the song, "If You Could See Me Now" says, If we could see him now, we would never want him to leave that place.
I pray for God's blessings on your mother, on you, on M and the rest of the family.
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