Sweet Goodbye
"Love is watching someone die."-Death Cab for Cutie
He's become an old friend at this point, death. I knew him first at sixteen when my Great Grandmother passed. I held his work in my arms at nineteen when one of my closest friends lost her child inside her womb. We are not strangers, Death and I.
To actively watch death, however, is new.
I sit under the stars watering my garden and thinking of the love whom they planted in the ground today. He was 86 years old, my grandpa. And he always listened to me, listened like his heart was free to love me, to see me. He worked hard his whole life, but somehow he always made time for us.
When death came for him, it was not quick, quite, or kind. He was tethered to an oxygen tank for four and a half years, then in the hospital bed for ten days last summer. We thought we would lose him then, but his battle did not end there. The whole family gathered around his bed, and I guess he liked the attention. He rallied his strength and returned home to his cat, Nick. Before he left, there was colors light and a do not rececitate order placed. We knew he would never go back to the hospital again.
We watched him die. Some of us, like my Aunt Kelly, a little more closely than others. But in the end, we all knew it had not been the easy passage we had prayed for. The heart that taught me so much about unconditional love did not slip easily into that dark night. In the end, he went with the same spunk and love he built his life on.
I can't find a man like him. There was a dream in my heart to be loved the way he loved my grandma. But I think maybe we are just to learn these lessons and know that it does exist, the kind of love that puts others first its whole lifetime. Life was important enough to him to live out those final painful days. It's time I learned to live with his grace and vivacity.
So while he's gone, part of my heart knows what love is because of him. Tonight, under these stars, I am wishing him a sweet goodbye knowing I will never forget him.
I love you, Donald Tobey. And I always will.
He's become an old friend at this point, death. I knew him first at sixteen when my Great Grandmother passed. I held his work in my arms at nineteen when one of my closest friends lost her child inside her womb. We are not strangers, Death and I.
To actively watch death, however, is new.
I sit under the stars watering my garden and thinking of the love whom they planted in the ground today. He was 86 years old, my grandpa. And he always listened to me, listened like his heart was free to love me, to see me. He worked hard his whole life, but somehow he always made time for us.
When death came for him, it was not quick, quite, or kind. He was tethered to an oxygen tank for four and a half years, then in the hospital bed for ten days last summer. We thought we would lose him then, but his battle did not end there. The whole family gathered around his bed, and I guess he liked the attention. He rallied his strength and returned home to his cat, Nick. Before he left, there was colors light and a do not rececitate order placed. We knew he would never go back to the hospital again.
We watched him die. Some of us, like my Aunt Kelly, a little more closely than others. But in the end, we all knew it had not been the easy passage we had prayed for. The heart that taught me so much about unconditional love did not slip easily into that dark night. In the end, he went with the same spunk and love he built his life on.
I can't find a man like him. There was a dream in my heart to be loved the way he loved my grandma. But I think maybe we are just to learn these lessons and know that it does exist, the kind of love that puts others first its whole lifetime. Life was important enough to him to live out those final painful days. It's time I learned to live with his grace and vivacity.
So while he's gone, part of my heart knows what love is because of him. Tonight, under these stars, I am wishing him a sweet goodbye knowing I will never forget him.
I love you, Donald Tobey. And I always will.
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