Twelve Months (23 page)

It amazed me how I ended up right back where I had started. I had to wear a bulky diaper for incontinence, my head was shaved, and though I still had most of my teeth, my gums were aching as if they were just coming in. It was comical – in a cruel sort of way.

My hospice nurse, Donna, called Dr. Rice's office to have my pain medication refilled and the dosage increased. At this point, I was on morphine and would have taken as much as I could. The receptionist told her, “I'll have to get Dr. Owens to fill that order for you.” While still on the phone, Donna relayed the message to me.

“Dr. Owens?” I asked. “Why?”

Donna asked, listened for a moment and told me, “Dr. Rice passed away two nights ago, Don.”

I felt my knees buckle.
Oh God…no,
I thought,
she's too young!
“Was it… unexpected?” I asked.

Again, she asked – and waited. “Yes,” she answered, softly. “It was.”

As Donna placed the telephone back into its cradle, I realized I'd been given time to get my affairs in order, while she hadn't.
I'm actually the lucky one
, I decided.

Through my drug-induced haze, I prayed hard that night, giving God thanks for bringing Dr. Rice into my life when I needed her most. Like Sophia – and even George Cournoyer, the truck driver – she was an angel, who helped guide me when I could see no light.

On the morning of Pudge's kindergarten graduation, the sun shone so brightly I thought I'd go blind. Riley and Michael didn't think I'd make it, but they didn't understand the power of a grandfather's promise – not to mention there were enough chemicals coursing through my bloodstream to keep a horse alive. Granted, I couldn't walk and had to be wheeled in, but come hell or high water I knew I'd be seated in the first row of the auditorium when the school principal stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat. “I'd like to welcome the teachers, parents, friends and most of all the students of this year's kindergarten graduation. Please allow me to begin with a poem I read some years back.” He cleared his throat again.

Bella grabbed my hand but I was okay. In fact, I was better than okay.
In a way, I'm graduating too
, I thought.

“One day you're looking forward to first grade and before you know it you'll be my age,” the principal teased his young audience.

The kids laughed, thinking,
No Way!
This guy's old.
He was forty – maybe.

A few more words of promise, a few more words of advice, and a flock of homemade caps scattered into the air. Pudge had made it past kindergarten. I'll never forget the size of his smile.

Beside a table of fruit punch and cupcakes, we smothered our proud graduate with hugs and kisses. During the conversation Riley commented, “If we could go all go back to the beginning…” She stopped and looked at me with such sorrow that it nearly made me lose it.

“We wouldn't change a thing,” I said, hurrying to put her at ease.

Everyone was surprised by this.

“We make our own choices, plot our own paths and become exactly who we want to be,” I explained.

Bella leaned over the back of the wheelchair to place a kiss on my head.

More than ever I became very aware of my physical body and how my faculties were failing me, but I also became aware of how grateful I was that they'd carried me as far as they had.

I spent two hours putting in the last pieces to the puzzle and wouldn't you know it, there was a piece missing; one stupid piece that completed the whole picture. I called for Bella's help and we searched everywhere. It was nowhere to be found. I honestly couldn't believe it and looked at my wife. “You've got to be kidding me…”

She started to search more, but I stopped her. “We've looked everywhere. It's either lost or never existed to begin with.” Few things have bothered me more.

That night, the pain was so bad I began to quietly sob. Without a word or any shame between us, Bella stripped me to my underwear and massaged my body – gently, lovingly. As we listened to soft ballads, I tried to breathe through each wave of pain that crashed on the shore.
One, one-thousand…two, one-thousand…three, one-thousand…
With more love than I've ever known, my beautiful wife tended to my broken body until the morphine found enough leverage to put me to sleep.

It became a chore to get out of bed but when I could manage it, I started spending even more time sitting on the deck in my Adirondack chair, going through the scrapbooks and photo albums Bella and I had put together. The kids came over that weekend, but the pain was so intense I had to go to bed. I felt delirious. As I struggled to share whatever I had left, Madison and Pudge sat by my side. “We're only here for a short time,” I told them. “So be happy, chase your dreams and do more laughing than worrying.”

“We will,” Madison said.

“Just remember, okay? If you can dream it, you can live it.”

Madison kissed my cheek. “I'll remember everything, Poppa,” she promised. “We both will.”

I suddenly realized my biggest fear was that I'd be forgotten. I looked at Pudge.

He nodded right alongside his sister. “Leave more than you take, right, Poppa?”

“Right,” I said. My eyes filled and I reached for my grandbabies. They were the finest gifts I'd ever received.

I'd surrounded myself with positive people. That along with my attitude had brought me seven more weeks of life. But I was fading fast.

While death loomed nearby, my wife's gentle spirit quieted the fear. I finally initiated the discussion she'd been dreading. “Between the savings and the life insurance money, you'll be able to pay off the mortgage and help the kids into college, yes?”

She nodded, but didn't speak.

“It's important they do even better than Riley and Michael, right?”

“They will,” she whispered.

“Disney World all set?”

“They don't know it yet, but they're going this February during school vacation.”

I smiled. “Any left for the Tomorrow Fund?” The fund offered financial assistance to pediatric cancer patients and their families. Having cancer as an adult was terrifying, but I couldn't even imagine the torment it caused the parents of a child who suffered the same fate. I'd met many young couples that couldn't hold down jobs as well as spend their days praying at the side of their child's hospital bed. It was important to help.

“They'll be getting a check every year on your birthday.”

I reached for my wife's hand and kissed it. She was more than I'd ever deserved and I'd never stopped blessing the day we'd met. “I'll always love you,” I told her.

“You'd better,” she said and buried her face into my sunken chest.

To think about the lives I could have lived and didn't
, I thought, and was so grateful for it.

I asked Michael to pick up my suit from the dry cleaner. I'd only owned one; a navy blue two-button that I called my wedding suit as a younger man and my funeral suit in my later years. It seemed appropriate that I'd be buried in it.

I made Michael promise he'd place four things into the inside pocket: a pearl earring, a seashell earring, a white rabbit's foot, and the Crayola masterpiece his daughter had drawn.

“I promise,” he said, trying hard to be strong.

“I'll need you to give the box to the kids and I'll leave you instructions for the rest.”

He nodded.

Three or four nights later – I'm not sure, as I was in and out of it – as if I were a young boy again, I dozed off in my bedroom and could hear the voices of adults talking in the kitchen down the hall. They sounded sad and though I tried to listen, I was so tired and kept drifting off.

I looked up and found Bella, Riley and Michael standing over my bed. Each had been crying. I looked past them. The grandkids weren't there and I was glad for it. I didn't want them to remember me this way.

Bella placed two pills into my mouth and tilted the water glass so I could drink. The physical pain was blinding, but except for the few moments when I couldn't see past it nothing had changed. I was the same person – sort of like when you're forty and still feel like you're eighteen inside. And I loved just as deeply. Only now, I lived inside of a broken container and couldn't break out of it.

Michael placed his hand on mine and tried to smile.

I decided to help him. “I don't know why people fear death. It's life that should scare the hell out of everyone.”

He half-laughed and then began to cry.

“Make sure you make time to run that marathon, son,” I told him. “It was the best adventure I've ever known.”

He nodded and wiped his eyes. “I will, Dad.”

Riley sat by my side and stroked my hair. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried.

“Don't cry, angel,” I told her. “Love this strong can never die. It's not possible.”

She placed her cheek to mine and sobbed. “So much for miracles,” she whispered.

I moved my face so she would look at me. “Sweetheart, haven't you been watching?” I asked.

She locked eyes with me but didn't answer.

“This last year
was
the miracle!”

She nodded.

“Death is a guarantee for us all – just a part of the natural order of life – but not everyone can count themselves blessed with the life I've lived,” I said. “When it's all said and done, Riley, we have love…and we have our stories. And I've been lucky enough to share both.”

Even through the tears, she smiled.

“And Riley…”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“On the day you were born, you were given everything you'll ever need. I forgot that for too many years. Don't you forget.”

She nodded. “I won't,” she whimpered.

“Remember, the only path to peace and happiness is within yourself…and an Adirondack chair.”

She kissed me and stood for Michael's embrace.

I looked up and saw Bella crying and grinning, all at the same time.

I smiled. “Dr. Rice was right, you know.”

“How's that?”

“It was the best twelve months of my life. Think about it: I raced a stock car, drove cattle, spent a week in a tropical paradise with the woman of my dreams…and lived the life I chose.” Even through the pain, I couldn't wipe the smile from my face. “I've seen some of the world, loved hard and suffered just as much. The only tragedy was that I waited until I was dying before I started living.”

“That's all of us,” she said. “We all do that.”

“But don't, Bella. Live.”

She shook off the thought of going on without me. “At least you finished most of your list.”

“True, no regrets…but we did better than that,” I said. “We met some truly amazing people and were able to even help a few of them. I learned more in the last year – and grew as a human being – than I did my entire life.” I grabbed for her hand. “Thank you for taking the walk with me. It's really been something, hasn't it?”

“I wouldn't have missed it for the world.” She kissed me. “We're still going to have that dance, you know.”

“Dance?” I asked.

“The one we talked about the night of our wedding anniversary.”

I remembered and winked at her. “You'd better believe it,” I said.

I'd always loved lightning storms, the elements in their most liberated form just passing through to remind us of our place in the universe. I suppose I was equally attracted to the raw power and beauty of it all. In either case, I really wanted to experience one last storm before I left.

It was the following dusk when the air suddenly went still; the quiet before the storm. As if chased away, the sun disappeared – replaced by a wall of dark clouds as great as any stampede of buffalo. The air temperature plummeted and the first few raindrops pelted my window. Slowly, cautiously, the black clouds approached from all four corners and gathered, creating the ideal conditions to put on the perfect show.

With a smile, I asked Bella, “Can you please draw back the curtains and open the window?”

She did.

A bolt of lightning – a bare thread of energy connecting the Earth to heaven – arched from within the shadows above, zigzagging downward. For a split second, it illuminated the entire sky and revealed the fear in my sad wife's eyes. One heartbeat later, a clap of thunder showed its appreciation.

Rolling like a battalion of tanks across the open desert, Mother Nature launched her massive offensive and shook the ground with fury. Snap, crackle, pop – several bolts fired in the distance. I waited for the bang! It came. And then there was another, a distant echo of the first, before the howling wind brought the sweet smell of newness. Crack. Bang. Crack. Bang. I lay in my bed, my eyes filling with tears.
I'm going to miss it all,
I thought.