No, to be honest, I have been one of those people for many weeks now. It truly seems as though it was just this week. I remember the details as if I am watching a 3D video complete with subtitles playing back my thoughts in a scrawl across the bottom of the screen.
On March 7th of 2015, I boarded an early morning flight to Chicago, then to Denver and finally to Boise for a surprise visit to see my Dad in Meridian ID. He was in an Assisted Living facility since early 2011. Mom passed in the same facility just before her birthday that same year.
We asked Dad, almost every time we talked to him, to come stay with us here in Indiana, but he always declined, saying he had friends there, and the grand and great grand kids were just down the road and minutes away. We understood, but wanted him to know he was welcome here and for as long as he wanted to stay. He also said he didn’t think he could handle Indiana winters.
He was asleep when I arrived sitting in a huge recliner, the kind that assisted him with a push of a button, in getting him out of it and back into it.
He woke up, smiled and greeted me, then over the next several minutes, drifted back to sleep. Most of my visit was like that, we would be talking and he would drift off to sleep. He seemed alert at meal times the first day I was there, but not so much the next day. The last day I was there he would drift off and start a slow nose first dive into his plate.
The Hospice Nurse said he had been fading since late Fall, and his end was near, something I did not want to hear. Dad has always been there, a call or a plane ride away. To hear he would not be, was something I was not ready to hear, not ready to accept. I had always believed Dad would be the first Macklin to live to be one hundred, and now I was being told he would not make ninety, just over four months away. “Days, maybe a week,” was the news I was given. Okay, I’ll stay as long as needed. The Hospice Nurses and the Staff pleaded with me not to stay. “He has said his goodbyes and staying will mean he has to fight on, when he doesn’t want to.”
I understood it, but… My heart had other ideas.
The young ladies that where there for Dad were a blessing. I felt for the new nurse on the staff. “He will be the first patient I loose,” she told me with unshed tears in her eyes. I don’t remember her name, but I think of her often. I hope she is still the blessing for others as she was for my Dad.
The Nurses and Staff were right, I needed to go home. I needed to let my Father let go. And I don’t mind saying that right now I can’t see the words I am writing.
I spent my last night in Idaho with Dad in his room. He was restless, and at times we talked a little. The staff was great about it. Then at 4 am I had to leave. I had stalled for as long as I could in leaving for the airport. Dad was awake, I told him Sandi and I loved him, and he responded that he loved us too, and then drifted off to sleep again. I almost ran out of the building, if I didn’t, I would have defied the Hospice Nurses and stayed.
The lady at the check in counter for the airline saw I was upset and asked about it. Then came around the counter, asked is she could hug me and did.
It is unlikely Kayla and the other nurses will read this, but I must say thank you. Sandi an I can never express our appreciation for what you did for my Dad, and for us.
Dad, I will always miss you, and will always struggle with the perception that it was only yesterday we said goodbye.