17 YEARS

Seventeen years ago today we laid our dad to rest. It was a very cold, rainy, dreary day. It was a relief and also an extreamly sad day. Dad had been sick with cancer for two years (diagnosed). We think he had cancer for about 5 years but dealt with the pain until he couldn't take it any more and went to a doctor. He acturally thought he had ruptured a disc in his back. It turned out to be multiple myeloma (a cancer of the plasma of the blood - very rare in the white population 17 years ago).
Dad was in the hospital the last 5 weeks of his life. I was driving a special ed school bus and going to college back then. Mom called me as I finished my morning route and told me she and dad were at the doctors office if I wanted to come to spend a little time with them. I had not seen Dad for about 3-4 weeks. I was shocked when I saw him. Dad had always been a robust man. He was tall, nice looking and a very proud man. Now he was in a wheelchair, thin and pale. When Dr. Hankins came in, he asked me to step out of the room. Dad requested I stay, that bothered me a little. The doctor told Dad that he needed to be admitted to the hospital, that his pain could no longer be controled on an out-patient basis. Dad said he didn't want that, but the doc insisted and left the room for Mom and Dad to discuss this. I was standing closest to Dad and he laid his head on my chest hugged me and cried. This really got to me as Dad very rarely showed any type of emotion (except frustration or anger at times - toward us). He did have a great sense of humor and laughed a lot, just not often with us. Anyway, my relationship changed that day. Mom and I convienced Dad that he needed to be in the hospital. He knew if he went into the hospital that he would never come out alive (he was right). I think Mom later regretted talking him into going in, she wished she had taken him home to die but I think she made the right decision.
I called my boss and got a substitute to dive my bus and stayed with Mom. Dad didn't have many good days after that. I remember one day Dad was hungry but couldn't think of a thing he wanted to eat (been there). I told him I would make anything he wanted and get it to him. He said he would really like one of Mom's banana cakes with caramel icing. I had Mom's recipe so told him I would make the cake. I did but it was so light that when I put the icing on it began to split (we call that a cake quake) and just kept falling apart. I got so upset because I was making this for my dad who was dying and I wanted it to be perfect. I had put it on a tupperware cake plate with the top. By the time we got to the hospital, it was all to pieces inside the cake carrier, so I turned it upside down into the lid. Rex was in the room when I got back. He and Dad took spoons and dug into the cake and laughed about the "Banana Sludge Cake" I had made. They laughed so hard tears were streaming. but they ate half the cake. Mom told me later that Dad had laughed so much about that cake that it was one of the few days that he had very little pain.
A few days after that on Sunday, October 29th just before noon, he passed away with the darling of his life sitting by his bed holding his hand (my youngest Teri). He was buried at the Piney Grove Cemetary in North Al. on October 30th. Altho it has been 17 years, there are days that the pain is as fresh as if it were yesterday. I guess that comes from being the only girl and finding a relationship with someone I loved dearly very late in life and not having it long before he was gone. I always tried to be with Mom, if I could, around this time of the year because I knew how very much she missed him (she never got over that emptiness). Now I deal with it by myself. Some times its just another day and I think about it at the end of the day as a passing thought and then there are times like today that the pain of his passing hits me like a ton of bricks.
Mom told me once that it would be like this. She experienced the same emotions about her dad. She said it was harder when her mom died. She was right. It has been much harded to deal with the emotions since she passed. The only bright spot in this whole thing is I will see them again one day - THANK THE LORD!!!