In May of 2008 my mother managed to surprise everyone by dying before my dad did.  He had been bedfast since June of 2005 with a mind that rapidly failed him, eventually rendering him silent except for the occasional groan . . . or growl . . . or unintelligible noise that was his only form of communication.  At times he would stare at you—and at other times through you, with no recognition or even acknowledgement that you were present.  Everyone who knew them just knew he would die first.  That alone should be a valuable lesson in the art of assuming we can predict an individual’s expiration date.

It was 8:00 in the evening when she slipped away, although it really was not a “slipping” in the sneakiest sense of the word.  But once death arrived and carried her from our presence, those activities that immediately follow commenced.  Their doctor—who was also a friend for more years than I had lived—came to the apartment to make official the obvious.  And while we gathered and pondered, he quietly entered Dad’s room and shared the news.  He believed that my father understood, but who really knew?  A few days later my precious daughter told her grandfather that it was all right.  If he wanted to, he could go now as well.  She would be waiting for him and they could be together again.

My parents had always been active in funeral service, not just locally but also on a state and national level.  My father had served as the Secretary of Selected Independent Funeral Homes, an international organization, and as a District Governor for the National Funeral Directors Association.  Many of his friends in funeral service, unaware of his condition, sent cards and emails—which I dutifully opened and read and, when required, acknowledged.  The names were familiar to me for many of them had visited with us or had been introduced when I would attend the national conventions with my parents.  I knew those to whom Dad had been close; I knew the names he would have recognized, those that would mean something.  So, a few weeks after the funeral, I gathered those cards and emails and went to the apartment.  My intention was to read them to him, to show him how many people cared and had taken the time to send their thoughts and prayers.  The possibility that he would not understand did not matter.  I was doing it more for me than for him anyway.

I stood beside his bed, looking down at his blue eyes that seemed to search my face on that particular day.  Was he trying to decide who I was or did he know and simply wondered why I was there this time?  I produced the first card, holding it where he could see it, explaining that so many people had been so kind after Mother died and that I thought he might like to hear from some of his friends.  I began to read but before I could finish the first one, he interrupted me, and as clearly as I had ever heard him speak, said “Should I be doing anything now?”

I stopped.  There was nothing else to do but stop.  It had been I didn’t know how many years since I had been able to understand anything he said.  It had been years since I had heard his voice and it truly sound like the man I knew and loved.  I stopped and, putting down the card, I gently laid my hand on his arm and said, “No . . . no.  Robert and I took care of everything.  It was a beautiful service and I think you would have been very pleased.”  I told him what kind of casket we had used and what the vault had been and who held the service and how many people had come.  I tried to tell him all the things the funeral director would want to know . . . and the husband of over 50 years.

He never spoke again.  Until the day he died in November of 2009, he never spoke again. Something happened that day and I will never know what or how.  In a moment of clarity, he had been able to tell me that he knew.  He knew the woman who had been so much a part of his life was no longer there.  It broke my heart to know that he could not tell her goodbye; he never had the opportunity and, even if there had been time, could he have done so?  But it also told me that somewhere, deep within him, was the man he had once been.  Despite the ravages of his illness, despite his physical and mental deterioration and the failings of his body and mind, he was still there.  And this extraordinary event that took from me one parent, brought about this extraordinary moment that briefly gave me back the other.

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