I looked and I saw:
I looked into those glossy eyes staring
back at me
and I saw what seeing is...
what's left for those,
that are left...
to those departed....
my sister said "I LIKE your Asian tan"
I laughed out of shock
because I knew she didn't really mean to be
funny.
she was in shock too
so we embraced
reality.
'Our father is dying'
I thought to myself
"covered by the blood of Jesus!"
He was all yellow and purple.
bruised all over...like he had been beaten.
we circled around him and sang hymns for long hours
day after day
harmonizing as we know how to in family.
he loved Jesus
so we praised him as best we could.
I think he was pleased.
it was hard to tell since he couldn't speak.
but his eyes were as expressive as ever...and
he was as cheeky as ever!
I hated hearing him groaning at night...and I knew then
that I didn't know his mind
we all waited in agony
one week was NOT time
it was ETERNAL
but the clock was ticking and it was very painful to my ears.
like water droplet Chinese torture.
the pressure built in my neck and my head
and I could not breath.
at one point I began suffocating
I could not breath
my sister, Rachelle, walked me through it
breath in
breath out
she walked me through it more with her eyes than her words really
I knew she was choking just the same.
second "panick attack"
of my life
I had put a flower
a thorn flower
on his breast
when he drew his last breath
he didn't speak
but one tear dropped
from his one left eye
and then he died.
my sister and I cuddled his dead body for a long time,
and my brother fixed his face into a smile.
premonition:
I heard his voice in my head in a dream before he died. I was napping, just before the nurses arrived...and before I awoke to hear them tell me what I already knew...my fathers voice said to me " Robynn! It's ALRIGHT! "
and it was exactly his voice and it woke me out of my nap...
then the nurses walked us through the steps of what we should expect upon his death...although I had already read about it and already knew, I just nodded and agreed....and tried to listen to my fathers voice that it was ALRIGHT rather than their jabbering.
the first sign was that he was blind in the morning and his feet went cold.
I looked into my sisters deep green eyes and said...he's going....
we knew we only had hours left and what to say and what to do..we thought all of us we had more time...always more time...but we accepted...and we forgave...
I felt an immense pressure on my shoulders. and my head and my entire body. until the moment he died.
and when he died...all that pressure released and I felt free as a bird.
like a gentle wind blowing over me. all the weight all the heaviness gone...I took in a deep breath..
I looked long and hard at that face slowly turning to stone
I realized...Maurie is GONE.
and I hugged his dead body with my sister.
she cut off his long white mullet hair and gave us each a portion.
My inheritance from my dad is a strong spirit and a brave heart.
I loved him till the end, and with all his failures...
yet I hope to see him again.
the song he wrote for me I only heard when he was dying. I had only glimpses of my father and mainly lies from my mother.
I thought we would have had more time.
I'm left with only this
"it's alright"
and
"Death comes to us all...
your heart is strong,
have the courage to follow it"
RIP Father.
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