I can not go to sleep. My mind will not rest. Thoughts roam through than change taking another turn to another direction over and over again.
I lie in my childhood bedroom, remembering my life here with my parents. We moved here when I was in the seventh grade, my sister Caroline starting ninth grade. The first house my parents bought since moving to Wichita from Missouri when I was 3 years old.
There are a lot of memories here. I don't remember any bad memories from this house. I was fortunate to have parents that loved each other and raised my sister and I in the principles of a Christian home. They loved each other, my mother took care of us and my father worked hard and long hours to provide for his family.
Now my father; my hero, my friend; my guide - lies in a hospital bed in the dining room - waiting to die.
My mother - the love of his life lies in her bed without him at her side - where he has been for 64 years. Knowing he will never lie beside her again. Expressing each day "How am I going to live without him?"
How can I answer that?
My dad has always been a strong man. He has been on his own since he was a young boy. He has worked hard all of his life. He started jumping on trains at the age of 10 and went to other towns to work, then jump the train and go home. When he grew older he would hop on the trains and ride them to Kansas or Arkansas from Missouri and work.
When he turned 18 he joined the Navy - and served in World War II - seeing more action than I could ever imagine. He has told me horror stories of taking a Landing Craft as close as possible to shore and letting the Marines and Army out to go fight in the war. Then pick up wounded soldiers and take them back to ships to be treated. Some didn't make it but some did. He remembers giving them morphine to ease their pain and how they would calm down until they got them to help. Then turn around and take another load of soldiers back to shore.
He seen the first flag raised at Iwo Jima, than seen it taken down for a General that demanded it and seen another one raised for political reasons so more bonds could be sold to raise money for the war effort, to show the people back home how well it was all going.
Now I lay here, than quietly sneak into the dining room just to make sure he is still breathing. He doesn't like to take the morphine for his pain because of what he seen in the war. He is brave and just waits for the end to come.
Today my mom and I sat in the living room and would hear him talking - in his sleep. When ask he says he was helping someone work on an old car. He once said "Jennifer", which is my daughter, I ask him if he said "Jennifer", he opened his eyes and ask if she were here. I said "no, but you said her name". He said, "We were fishing and we had a big one on the line and I was helping her bring him in." He had dreamed this. All day long this went on, he talked out loud - to people we could not see or adventures he was reliving.
Tonight I gave him a pill for anxiety and the morphine he hates so much just so he could rest and hopefully make it through the night.
Tomorrow the Hospice nurse comes again to check his vitals. She will see that his urine has darkened (showing his kidneys are shutting down), his is sleeping more and drinking less. His pulse has slowed and his breathing is irregular. The time is getting closer for him to rise to Heaven to be with my sister, Caroline; and my daughter, Wendy.
How Mom and I take it is left to be seen, but we know we have taken care of him as he wanted it. In his home, with family and sounds that he knows in the home he done so much work on for mom to be safe in when he does go.
It might not be tonight, or tomorrow - but soon he will go. He will leave us behind. We will cry and hurt for a long time. The memories we have will be good ones. He is a good man, but we know he will be waiting for us when we cross over.
