Turn the Page.

A new president has been selected and this evening I sit and wait for the telephone to ring. I knew this evening would arrive one day but did not expect it now. My Mother and Uncle are speeding over a mountain in Vermont to reason with a man who has spent his life being in control and using common sense. They will try to convince him that the breathing tube is necessary if he wants to see his girls one last time. It is not what he wants but he may falter at the mention of the girls.

As you, yourself, get older you really don't think about the people in your life dying. Somewhere in the back of your mind, it is obvious it will happen, but it is not prevalent in day to day life. Your parents seem so infallible so when they age and then become weakened by disease it is shocking. My mom called only days ago to say he was in the ICU. He needed assistance with his breathing and today she tells me that he would need life support to sustain his life but he will not accept that. That much I had figured out already. I know this man well.

This is a man who I have seen fell trees and build a building by himself. I have watched him throughout my life take care of his family and his home by getting up early every day and working hard. I have seen him at his toughest and at his weakest. I have watched him help people who could not help themselves and make people laugh when they were sad. I have gotten advice and ass-kickings. I have gotten his support when I needed it. He taught me how to rely on my head and my abilities to get a job done. When I called him today, I could not bare to hear his voice through the breathing machine. It was not him.

Forty nine years. That is what I have had with him. I pray my Mother and Uncle do not ask him to do something he doesn't feel is right just to see the girls one last time.

I asked him today, "Do you remember what you got us one Christmas that you had to hide in the shed?" and he said, "Yes, and so do you." I replied, "Yes, I do."

This is the time I want him to remember. This is the time I want him to return to in those final moments. I wish for him to go back in time and embrace the girls again when they were young, hold tight and then calmly go home to God.