Standing upstairs, "Baby Pink" on one hip, "Orange" and "Blue" fighting over whose turn it is to play with the latest toy, T.V. going in the backround and the phone ringing....
It's my mother. She called to tell me that my father has just passed away. Twenty minutes before...
"Your brother and sister do not know." she says. It becomes my job. I choose to call my 'out of state' brother. My mom had said she'd tried my sister, but that she hadn't picked up her cell...and quote, "How come no one picks up their phone, anymore?"
I felt guilty giving my brother such 'news', especially when he'd answered so cheerily. "Hey...how are ya? Why are you doing calling me in the middle of the day?"
It cuts you deeply, when a grown man inhales sharply and chokes up. He said he would go ahead and 'call our sister.' Later, I found out that she hadn't picked up his call either, and ended up hearing about it from mother, after all.
She also wasn't interested in seeing daddy or mother for that matter, at the care home. She would wait and meet mother later. At our parents' home, instead.
Daddy's Parkinson's had long made "assisted-living" care essential, and so my sister said she was trying to remember him, just as she had last seen him, on this past Labor Day Weekends' Sunday... jovial, alert, and happy.
I, on the other hand, went into what I can only call, "organized-daughter - mode." "I'll meet you there." I said. And, "How long before the nurse leaves and the mortuary service comes to pick him up?" She said she'd told them to wait for a couple hours. I guess, we both needed that buffer.
I wanted to hold his weathered soft and smooth hands one more time, kiss him on his cheek, and tell him how much he will be missed by me, and all those who knew him to be a great man. And, how proud I was that he'd lived beyond all of our expectations...long enough, to see my daughter, his last-born grand-daughter, shortly after her birth in March...and the birth of his only two great-grandsons. One born in February, the other in July.
How he'd lived till he was 84. One of eleven children, now with only three sisters left. The last one to go of the seven boys in his family. How he'd made it through to his 61st wedding anniversary, and how, along with my mother, we'd brought the party to him at his "home" this year, on a day that was at least 108* and 'packed the house' with 62 adults and many children.
My brother grieves today, away from us and Arizona, and my sister has memories of what our father looked like 'before today came', but I have seen my parents' love in it's purest form' and for that I have no regrets and will be forever grateful...
Until we see you again, beloved Daddy and Papa - You are gone, but never forgotten...
J.G.G. 07/07/26 - 09/08/10
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