Chapter 8

I went home that night. My sleep that night wasn't very restful, what
little of it there was. The next morning I pretty much just stumbled back
over there. A hospice chaplain was there. She left by 9:30.

Half an hour later it was time for another morphine suppository. She
didn't make it through this one. By the time we finished she had stopped
breathing. The hospice nurse was on her way so we waited. This is when my
sister called to get the news that I'm sure she didn't want to hear. Ten
minutes later the nurse showed up and called in the death.

From here things went fairly quickly. As I had no job, I got to watch her
daughter for a couple days while the memorial service and funeral
arrangements were made. By the end of that the couple that she had
arranged to take the girl had prepared their house.

In that time we tried to keep the girls life as normal as possible. I
took her to her softball game. There is where I realized exactly how
well she had been prepared. She told one of the girls "My mom just died".
The other 9 year old looked at her as if she didn't fully understand and
asked "Shouldn't you be sad?". There was no answer. At the time I
thought it was her being in shock. It took quite a while before I
realized that she had really just been so well prepared for this that she
did understand exactly what was happening.

The next day came the memorial service and funeral. I sat in the church
during the service mostly ignoring the priest that barely new her. I was
steeped in my own thoughts about her and our life together and what could
have been.

Sometime during the service I looked further down the pew. There I saw
the couple that was to be the little girls new family. They were holding
hands.

Now it hits me.

The hand I should be holding to comfort me is in THAT coffin.

Continue reading in Chapter 9