The Front of the Line: A Final Goodbye to my Parents

Today was the final day in my parents home.

The furniture was scattered by who needed what and the rest went to charity.

The “college hunks” hauled it and their name is befitting!

I walked around,breathing in the air in the space where my parents shared the final years of their lives for the final time.

Today I had to grow up,all the way.

There was no Mom and Dad here to run to.

But still I clung to the memories still living in this home.

I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

My mom had passed a few years after they moved into their “active adult” community near me.

(Although they were in their 80’s)

Mom and I were extremely close.

The remaining years with my Dad were a remarkable journey:

We had never seen eye to eye,I was,after all the renegade,but history and Mom's passing forced us to establish a brand new relationship.

We did.

We became best buddies.

We had weekly lunches,weekly dinners and debated every subject on earth.

Odd but he opened his mind up to my “unusual” way of seeing things and I learned just how gentle and strong this man was.

From the sad,hard and the lonely childhood to the loss of his 2 other girls,and to the love he still had for “his Josephine.”

His final months were hard on everyone.

But for some reason I felt it in my soul so deeply worse than anyone else, I suspect.

You see , we were just getting to know each other,him in his 80’s and me in my late 50’s.

He was my Dad,and I was his child.

A week before my Dad passed,he was curled up in the hospital bed in his guest room.

He was well taken care of: hospice and his angelic caretaker were his guardian angels.

He would be reaching into the air - looking up and babbling.

I knew he was seeing them, his parents, his children, my mom and they were there and he was going to leave me and and reunite with those that had gone before.

I needed to tell him what I never could before.I needed to say the words that I now felt so deeply that I cursed myself for not feeling this before.

But this relationship,this new bond, could have only happened now,when we had no other way.

He needed me and he was all I had left.

I looked at his shriveled body.

I stood at the foot of his bed.

“Dad,I love you more then you will ever know.

I am so sorry that I never gave you a chance.

You taught me what living a decent Christian life was all about.

You gave me everything and came from so little.

You never complained,ever.

You accepted the lose of 2 children and the lose of your beloved wife with grace and dignity.

You never asked “why me”

You never lost your faith.

Dad,if I ever get a chance to come back to earth I will ask God to have you and mom as my parents all over again.

You,my dearest father,I would choose over,and over again.

Go home Dad,it’s OK it is where you need to be.

I promise I will be OK.”

As I was about to leave the room I heard a faint voice.

“Carol,(I turned around and there were tears in his eyes)

That is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever told me”

I left that day and I never cried that hard before.

I cried because he deserved those tears.

And here I am, I run my hands over the curtains and look out the balcony window,for the last time.

It is then that I realize,there is no one in front of me.

There is no Grandma,no Grandpa, no Mom, no Dad.

Today I stand at the front of the line.

Where did it all go?

In the blink of an eye here I stand.

Today I grew up.

Today the world looks different.

Today the flowers smell more beautiful.

The hot sun is a blessing.

The traffic is fine,gives me time to think.

My allergies,hell they’ll go away.

The bills,they’ll get paid.

Today I realize that each day is a gift.

And it is even a greater gift to have lived long enough to be at “The front of the line”

Hug life

Carol