White_Roses

August 26

The Next 6am Phone Call

11 years 4 months and 10 days after our phone rang at 6am letting us know that my brother had died from a pain pill that he took while he was on anti-depressants the phone rang again. And it rang at 6am.

This time it was my sister. This time it was not unexpected. It was March 10th 2004 and I had been home for exactly 4 weeks after having been in Edmonton for almost 2 months. I had gone there because it was Christmas and we all knew that this was going to be the last holiday where we would all be together. From then on things were never going to be the same. My husband could not leave work and so I traveled alone...something I have become extremely proficient at. I had flown to Edmonton on December 11th and had planned on returning home somewhere around January 25th. However, my Mother and Step-Father asked me to stay a couple of extra weeks. He was undergoing 5 consecutive days of radiation and was going to need help as it normally took everything out of him from having it once a week. Had I known what would be taking place in their home after my leaving I would have stayed on another 2 months.

My Mother was married to my Father for almost 25 years. Their divorce actually came through about 3 weeks before what would have been their 25th anniversary. 

Mom and Dad split up just over a year before the divorce became final. During that time she worked in Customer Service at Sears. On August 5th 1980 he walked up to the counter with a gift that needed wrapping. He was 6'2" and very handsome and charming. He won my Mother's heart and married her 13 months later which was 4 weeks after the divorce was final and 3 days after what would have been my parents 25th anniversary.

I was 23, married and the mother of 2 small children. We were invited over one night to meet this man that my mother had started dating.  (Dating? My Mother?) I was on guard...I was not going to trust this man....I was in protective mode. He was funny, kind, gentle, charming and handsome. I was not falling for any of it. He gave me a gift of an oak cutting board and toys for my little ones. I was convinced he was a shyster. She married him anyway....of coarse by then  we 4 kids had accepted him completely and were more than happy to have him become one of the family. He had a daughter and a step-daughter from a previous relationship. They both lived with him. Years later the step-daughter would rarely ever visit him and my Mom and, his daughter would appear once in awhile...something which tore him apart constantly.

2 years after they married he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He received radiation and chemo but eventually surgery was required. This done he was cancer free and stayed that way for more than 10 years. Time went by...he and Mom sold the acreage...moved to Victoria...bought a house in St Albert...sold that same house without ever having lived in it...bought another house 3 blocks away...sold the house in Victoria and moved back to Alberta to be close to family. I live roughly about 1000 miles from there. To go by plane I have to leave the house at 7am...drive 2 hours to the other end of the island...wait for the ferry....take a 20 minute ferry ride......drive to the airport...catch a plane to Vancouver...wait 1 hour and catch a plane to Edmonton. I have done this many many times and expect I will do it many more.

On November 19th 1999 ...the day before my son was to be married I received a phone call from Mom. They would not be able to fly in for the wedding the next day as the cancer had returned but this time was in the bones.  I am not a stupid person but it just did not hit me for a very long time what this news meant. It was the following September that they moved back to Alberta after selling everything in Victoria.

He was the hardest working man I have ever known. The house was okay but not the way they envisioned it becoming. By the time he was done with it, it was a completely different house. I won't go into details as to how...just take my word for it...this man could do wonders. I think that is why I was never really worried about the cancer. I was there to see all the work done as I had become ill in the Spring of 2000 and went to live with my Mom and him 1 month after they moved into the house. I could not get the proper medical care here and had to go to THE BIG CITY.

He and I spent a weekend doing the back yard. Everything had to be dug up....the patio had to be put in brick by brick......dirt had to be shoveled into the wheel barrow and taken away..(Something I learned I suck at as I kept tipping it over all the time)...sod was laid down.....cedar bushes were planted.....new fencing.....you name it we did it. Had I not been so ill at the time I think I would have been able to appreciate much more the time that he and I spent together.

I came back home after being there for 14 months and after receiving treatment for my illness. I missed them both and by then the realization of what was really happening had begun to sink in. I returned every few months so as to spend as much time as I could with them and also with my children and grand-children. I flew back again in April of 2002....he had been told he had 12 months left. I was devastated. I sat and told him how much he meant to me.....how much I loved him and how much I was going to miss him. He told me he wasn't going anywhere. He was strong...he continued working on the house now getting the basement done....it went from being a giant cement room to being a beautiful place with 3 rooms including a huge family room with a pool table that he himself could barely use. He never stopped working...he wanted to make sure everything was taken care of for my Mother.

So here it was March 10th 2004 and my sister was on the phone calling from the University Hospital in Edmonton telling me to get on the plane NOW. 1 hour later we were out the door headed off to catch the ferry. I was leaving alone to go to another funeral. I arrived at 8:30 that night and my son picked me up. I arrived at the hospital at 10pm. that morning he had been awake and lucid but his heart had not been doing too well. By the time I arrived he was no longer conscious. I had missed being able to say goodbye. I left the hospital to go to my Mom's. My sister was there with her new husband. She and I had not spoken in a year and, 3 days after my step-fathers death I made the decision to cut her out of my life...since then so has the rest of the family....but that is another tale.

My Mother stayed at the hospital except for when we managed to convince her that we would not leave his side and she should go home and get some rest. 4 hours later she was back again. Over the next 3 days we all gathered in his room. We cried...we laughed recounting memories of all the things we had done as children and as adults...we talked about him with great love and affection. My Father is still alive to this day but this man lying in a bed in the hospital, this man who had never given up on himself...this man who loved my Mother in the way she deserved ....he was my other Dad.

I found myself all alone with him on March 11th a Thursday. Everyone had gone for supper in the cafeteria downstairs and I had said I would stay with him. I sat in the chair next to his bed holding his hand and humming to him though I had no idea if he was even aware I was there.  He opened his eyes. My heart stopped. He looked at me....he looked scared....all I could think was that my face was not the one he should see, for my face being there meant I had gotten on a plane and that meant the end was near. He made sounds....sounds I did not understand....I didn't know what to say....he clutched my hand tightly and would not let go.....he just kept looking into my eyes as though he were begging something of me and I could not make it out. I tried to tell him that I would run to the end of the hall to see if any family members were on the way back...he clutched my hand tighter. Tears poured from my eyes as they do now while I write this out. I told him I loved him and that Mom was there but had stepped out for a moment. He started to close his eyes and released my hand ...I raced to the hall in time to see his daughter my step-sister coming around the corner. I yelled out to her...not the proper thing to do in a hospital but at that moment it didn't matter....she came running as I told her what had happened. I told her to get in the room quickly while he was still awake. It was too late as he was once again in a deep drug induced sleep. He only woke up 2 times in between the morning of March 10th and when he passed away. Both times were when I was with him. The second time my daughter was also in the room. We were talking to him stroking his hand and arm as though our fingertips were feathers. He opened his eyes.....my heart stopped again and my daughter looked afraid....not because it was a scary moment but because we had not expected it. Once again he held my hand tightly...where he got the strength I do not know. Everyone was again at supper. It was March 12th, 7pm. Again he was making guttural sounds of which I could not comprehend. I cried and apologized to him for the fact that I was so useless at the moment. This was tearing me apart and I felt my daughter's hand go to my shoulder to rub it as she herself shed her own tears. He was awake for 2 minutes and then went back to sleep. He did not wake up again. Being that I was the only one without a vehicle I was spending roughly 20 hours a day there going to the house only to clean up and grab a couple of hours of sleep.

On Saturday March 13th my daughter, her husband and their 4 kids came to the hospital. She wanted to be able to see him again and the children had drawn him pictures. I had not seen my grandkids in 5 weeks and they came running to me. My rainbows....my twinkling stars. 2 hours later I left the hospital with them to go to their house for the night. I told my Mother I would stay the night there with her if she wanted but she said no.

My daughter ran me a bath and lit some candles and I lay back in the warm scented water and cried like a baby. I played with the kids and read them a bedtime story and then I myself went to bed. At 8:30am my daughter came downstairs to wake me. My Mother had called. He was gone....he had taken 2 deep breaths and then no more. I got up...got sick....washed and dressed myself and, my son-in-law drove me back to the hospital. By the time I arrived everyone else was there. They let me go into the room to have a moment with him. There he lay...no more tubes...no more oxygen tank.....no more morphine drip. The day before I had stood at the end of his bed rubbing warmed up cream into his feet because they had started drying up due to the fact he was not being given any nutrition or water. Now here I stood holding his hand which was soft and still warm. The strongest man I had ever known was gone.

The next few days were a blur. My Mother and I made all the funeral preparations. My step sister took care of the food......my brother and I wrote the obituary...we had to pick songs, a church...so many many things needed to be done. I suppose that is the only way you keep yourself together at that time....by being busy with all the organizing. 2 days before the funeral my sister decided to become insane and started screaming at my Mother. We sat there looking at her thinking it could not possibly be happening but, it was. She stormed out of the house husband in tow. At the church she made a display of affection towards my Mother but has since had no contact with her except for a couple of mean letters. I took care of my Mom after that.

The funeral was glorious if you can call a funeral that. Over 300 people attended including my Father and my ex-husband...he had been that great of a man. He was of Scottish descent and his best friend's son dressed in a kilt and was a pallbearer. There was a bagpiper and tons of tear drops. My brother gave the eulogy just as he had done for our brother 11 years 4 months and 19 days before.

3 days later my Mother, brother and I were at the crematorium. My Mother could not bear to think of him being there alone. They had put his body in a white box and we wrote messages to him from us and everyone else on the sides of it. The machine was started and we left. The feeling was strange......there is no describing it.

I stayed on for another month and spent every moment with my Mother. There were a lot of things to take care of and 1 by 1 we got them done.

I felt badly the day I left. My Mom drove me to the airport and came inside with me. She stood there watching me as I went through security and it was all I could do not to burst into tears when I had to wave one last time and go down the hall. I called her that night and every night for weeks afterwards. She was alone again after so many years.

We talk on the phone at least 4 times a week still. I think it makes her feel good and I know she has truly begun to feel the loneliness. I shall be going there again in the next few weeks to spend time with her.