Elegy

I returned home this morning from driving my daughter to school. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. It was my brother John, who had driven down to Pinehurst late last night, as we had received word that my father's condition was worsening. Luckily, he and my mother had both spent the entire night at Fox Hollow by my father's bedside. Dad passed away peacefully at about 0530. I had been asleep at home, but I had actually woken up about that same time, and had looked over at the clock, because it was earlier than usual for me and still dark out. I went back to sleep at that point, but my father, as my brother put it, "just got up and left the room."

I have no doubt he was happy to leave that room and its inherent restrictions behind him. We are all happy as well that he is no longer bound by the limits of the Alzheimer's wing at Fox Hollow, Pinehurst NC, an unlikely spot for my father to have lived out the last months of his life. 20 January 1930 - 28 March 2008.

Here is what I wrote to myself upon arriving home from Fox Hollow last time I was there, the last time I would ever see my father alive. This is my elegy.

The blinds on the windows
Allow the sunlight
To brighten the floor
But not the mood

In the room.

The smiling faces frozen
In binding photo frames
Exude good cheer
That goes unnoticed

By my father.

There is an inevitability
To the disease
Terminal, frightening, certain
His thoughts a mystery

I sit quietly.

Medications suspended
Naught but a death watch
He has faded away
Ready for the end, he and I

Having already grieved.

Once he was a pilot
Alone, unafraid, courageous
He has soared to the heavens
And now, again, he will be

In God’s hands.