A conversation with someone within 12 hours of their passing away

Yea he's been gone four years and I was reading over my blog the other day and thought you'd think this was an odd story. Mom left one morning back in 1986. She never saw my business flourish as she had hoped or did she.

My mom left one morning as I was getting ready to go to work. My father was in the kitchen and I was getting ready to leave when my mother called my name. I came to her and she asked me to get my father and she laid a damp towel on the armrest that was covered in blood. 

I got my father and they were together for five minutes then Peter swooped in and took her.

What a horrible day it was.

Here and there people are around someone that is about to pass on.

They talk about seeing the ones they loved and or family members or the bright light. The problem in most cases is that you really hate to ask them all these questions just before they make the big exit.

You also don't know it is going to happen. You are freaking out that it may happen and you so sad that they are that sick that you don't even want to think about it much less than ask them stupid questions like do you see lights? or is there any angels?

So my pops was laying there on his back with his mattress up a little bit. I had arrived late as usual and he gave me a hard time. Yes sir on his death bed now I can say years later and he is still giving me a hard time about me needing a hair cut. 

I walked into his private room at Emory Hospital in Decatur Ga. This was a few days after his second hip replacement. The first one got infected and the plan was to swap it out. The surgeons chickened out and didn't put in the new hip they just stopped the operation and sewed him up. No hip at all. The surgeons were afraid of the statistics and I had explained to them that they needed to me more worried about me if they didn't do what needed to be done.

Anyway, I sat on a chair next to my pops and we talked. Once he finished greeting me he asked me if I had seen all the Polish folk dancers singing Polish songs wearing costumes. He continued to tell me that they were celebrating the festivities and I just had missed them. I said no joke when? He said just minutes ago they were in his room. He then told me to go into the hallway and check them out. He wanted me to see their colorful costumes. I got up and thought he's on some powerful drugs as I left his room and went into the hallway.

I returned and I told that they weren't out there. He said go down the hallway further. They're were at least a hundred of them and that was too many of them for me not to have seen them. So I left his room and walked all over the hospital. I didn't see anyone except a few nurses here and there.

I returned and said ugh guess i missed them. I had seen the elevator door close and he said maybe the last of them had gone either upstairs or down stairs and then he was satisfied and I sat down and we talked again.

My father was Irish and had married my mother of German decent in NY and moved to Atlanta 65 years ago. 

Anyway we were back on the subject that I was late and he asked how the business was going and I told him it was slow but we were doing okay.

He asked me what time it was and I turned and pointed at the clock and I said 10PM. Oh he said then he asked me why there were so many clocks on the wall. I told him that there was only one clock and he got frustrated and he firmly told me that there was more than one. 

I stood up and reached to the only clock that was there and he said yea I see that what do you think I am blind? Okay Okay I told him.

I moved my hand to over and pointed at the empty wall and he said yes that one. Then there is another one on the other side. I moved my hand out a few inches and he said yes that one. At first I thought he was cross eyed a little but if he had been there would have been only two clocks and there were three. 

I sat down and almost broke down. I tried to stay upbeat as I realized that Peter and my mom were on their way to get my pops. I freaked out. Even though I had tears in my eyes I talked to him and he never asked me why I was so sad. 

He looked as he always did with wide eyes open and seemingly young with his bright eyes wrapped in wrinkled skin. 

I then told him that he had always been a great father and a great husband to my mom and that I loved him and was always proud that he was my pops. I told him that he had done a great job raising two sons and that he did everything right. I told him all the things you want to tell someone when he think you won't see them again or at least for a long time. 

I told him that mom would be here soon and that she wanted to take him around the world. She had missed him and that the two of them would be together again and this time they would never be separated. They could run with the bulls in Spain and see their friends. They would be somewhere that mom wouldn't be chilly all the time and that they could sit in the mountains and sip wine together in the evenings like they did years ago.

i stood up and then leaned down and hugged him and kissed him goodnight. I told him to go find mom then I told him one more time that I loved him and I left.

I cried in the parking lot for about a half an hour.

In the morning I got a call from a doctor at Emory that my pops had passed away in his sleep that night a few hours before dawn.