Relinquishment Isn't Easy

My beginning was less than auspicious.  I was my mother’s ninth child; she was 45 years old and my father died within hours of my birth.  My brother, Tony, tells me I was placed in a dresser drawer for use as a bed.  He was seven when I showed up.  He couldn’t understand where his dad had gone and where I came from.  

From that day on, he became my best friend and protector.  

Soon my mother, Tony and I moved to two rooms upstairs in a house.  That is where I grew up.  He took care of me; walked me to school when I started Junior High that was halfway across town.  When I was told to marry while still in high school, he was the one who escorted me down the aisle.  Through my subsequent divorce and many years of single parenting, he was always there. 

And now he is being supported by an air mattress (because of bedsores) in a room in a hospice house many miles away.  And I grieve. 

But there is more than that.  I’ve read about the connection twins have; even though they are a great distance apart.  Tony and I have that.  For 70 years we have been linked.  He would call and ask, “So what’s going on?”  And I would tell him.  Sometimes it was the other way around.  We could share the scene we saw in our mind.  It was always accurate.  

In his weakened state, talking on the phone is no longer an option.  But we are still linked.  Some days are better than others.  

When my daughter, Lorri, and I visited him in a nursing home in November, he spoke of many things.  I heard stories about our dad.  We re-lived many memories we had shared.  I watched him come alive as he listened to music.  His life-long career was spent as a musician, beginning as soloist in the Navy Band.  

We talked about this day…when the end was approaching.  And now it’s here.  

I wasn’t allowed to drive the first 25 years of my life.  He taught me to love it!  When we were there, he mentioned several times he just needed a steering wheel in his hands.  He also expressed a desire to eat a hamburger.  He knew there was a hamburger place just down the street.  Yet when we offered to get him one, he knew he would be unable to eat it. 

I am a calm, peaceful woman.  I would never describe me as restless.  Yet last Saturday I felt like pacing the floor…couldn’t watch tv, read, or even listen to music.  I finally received the message.  I climbed in the car and for the next hour drove and talked to him.  When I returned home, the restlessness had ceased.  

Tuesday it didn’t take me quite as long to understand the communication.  Again, I headed down the highway…this time tears streaming down my face.  I stopped and ordered a hamburger…and ate it for him.  We enjoyed it.  

Go ahead.  Think I’m weird.  I’m just telling it like it is.  

Letting go is difficult.  Yet I don’t pray for him to linger.  Since the death of my husband, John, I view dying differently than most people.  As I sat by John, we talked of heaven.  As a Christian, he was ready.  So is Tony.  It will be a wonderful transition for him.  

And so, I wait…and let go.