Forever Remembered

He died alone, surrounded by hospital staff.

The nurse called his daughter. Twenty miles away, headed to her cabin in the woods. ‘Your father is dying. To revive him any further would be very invasive and most likely unsuccessful. What would you like us to do’?

The very weight of holding someone's life in your hands, it is heavy. Let him go or hold on?

Just 4 months earlier, he was enjoying his children and grandchildren at the same cabin they were headed to this evening, unaware that liver failure would soon strip his soul from his body.

In his short life he was a brother, a husband once and a father twice. He was an alcoholic, maintaining life with rum and over the counter sleeping pills; he was an abuser of life.

He didn’t see his children often, maybe twice a year, but always at least once around the Super Bowl to watch the game in hopes of a Seahawk attendance, and if that, a victory. He would share his navy bean soup he spent all day preparing.

He abused people, women and children. He made others suffer, including himself.

He died alone.

Three weeks before he died. He had a dream. He stood in the middle of a room filled with cows. He was surrounded. Somehow he knew if he could fit one more cow in the room, he could be free. But there was no place for anything in this room filled wall to wall with cows. He woke from the dream confused, what did it mean and how would he get another cow in that room?

His body shut down quickly. His life was ending, while he admitted to no one that he knew he was dying, he knew this.

He lived alone, despite attempts to control and scare those he loved into loving him back, to helping him live.

He died alone.

Two weeks before he died, the doctor explained that his alcohol habit would prevent him from qualifying for a liver transplant. While he had been sober now 6 weeks and was the highest priority for a transplant, he needed a minimum of 8 weeks sobriety to be saved. This is the moment he knew. Death was near and inevitable.

He would not be saved.

In his final weeks his children came to visit often. During an evening visit, just a week before his death, after his daughter left the room, he shared his thoughts with his son. 'Before I die, I would love to feel the driving rain, I would love to feel the quiet of the snow falling, the heat of a sunny day'. He shared more of his truth with his son than he could with his daughter. His daughter always obeyed him. His son never did.

The night before he died, during a visit with his son and daughter, once his daughter left the room for a bathroom break, he told his son, ‘I figured out how to get another cow in the room’. He paused for a moment, while his son waited for the explanation. ‘I need to leave the room’.

The nurse repeated herself, ‘what would you like us to do, your father is dying’. She responded with hesitation, ‘do not resuscitate any further’.

He died alone.

That evening, his daughter and son traveled to the hospital room to say their goodbyes and do what you do when someone dies. After many hours, while sitting on his couch in silence contemplating the fact that his father was dead, the rain drove into his living room windows sideways. It was a driving rain that he couldn’t remember ever seeing before. While he had seen it as a boy, the phenomenon was rare. He sobbed. He wanted to feel the driving rain.

He was a soldier, and so his funeral would be met with proper military honor. It took weeks for the body and paperwork to be processed for his funeral to take place.

During those weeks, the sun shone, bright and clear like a perfect summer day for weeks in January in the Pacific Northwest, it was an anomaly.

On the day of his funeral, with full military honors, 5 people were there to witness his burial, his daughter, her husband, his son, his son’s wife and his brother.

The day was cloudy, but not too cold, a typical day in the northwest during February.

When they arrived at the cemetery, and started their precession to the place the funeral would physically occur, a soft drift of snow started to fall. It snowed so beautifully, it was impossible to deny that the man who had died alone, was among us.

We were not alone.

As we sat and remembered the man for who he was, a father, a bother. We wept and could not deny his presence.

The shots were fired. The land was silent. The snow fell in plumes, softly, purposely.

He died alone, forever remembered.