GOOD BYE

The family has been called that the end is near. Picture them gathered around Grandma lying in the bed she shared with Grandpa for more than fifty years. Her son and daughter are sitting on opposite sides holding her hands. Grandchildren gather behind the footboard to show their love. She speaks her last words and draws her final breath. That imaginary Saturday Evening Post cover painted by Norman Rockwell is what the American people like to believe happens, but many times people die alone.

I remember the actualities in my own life. Ken and I had been married three years and were the parents of two daughters when our brother-in-law called about seven o’clock on an October evening. He said my husband’s parents had been in an auto accident driving home from their jobs in Rockford. Dad had been killed instantly and Mom was in critical condition at a nearby hospital. Ken and I deposited our girls with my parents and rushed to sit in the hospital waiting room with his brother, sister and brother-in-law. After about two hours, a doctor came to tell us that despite their best efforts, Mom passed away.

Fourteen years later, an evening phone call from my mother brought the news that my father had died of a heart attack. They were on a tour bus trip and had been attending an outdoor pageant when Dad was stricken. A fast ambulance ride brought them to a hospital. She had been sitting alone in the waiting room five-hundred miles from home when a physician told her that they couldn’t save her husband.

Through the years, we’ve known families in the community that have received that ominous notice from the U.S. Army that their son has been killed in a faraway war.

Members of my cop family have been called for victims of murder, suicide and drug overdose.

Have you had an opportunity to tell a loved one a final goodbye?