Brother Robert's Death

 I had been at my brother Robert's home for several weeks prior to his dying. He was very social, holding elaborate dinners for family and friends. His son, Joe, was up from Florida. Joe worked as a chef at Disney. He had Joe make special dishes. Robert would send both of us to stores to get ingredients and other things. 

I was sitting in living room area of the house. Robert's hospital bed was across the room in what might have been the dinning room area. It was an open floor plan with another "rec" room to the right of his bed. Basically, from my vantage point Robert was in full view.

The house was filled with guests, family & friends. I was about to get up and go to Robert's bedside but his brother-in-law was talking to me I was too polite to interrupt, getting up to go across the room. A minute of two later, there were gasps from the bed. I was peeved that, after taking care of Bob for so many days, I was not at his bedside at the moment of death.

There were several people around his bed; I only remember sister Susan being there. That was a good thing; she was very close to our brother. 

Did I lift Robert's eyelid to see his eyes? I think so. I had not seen brother Richard's eyes after death; I was curious. I believe the eyes are windows to our soul, thus when soul leaves body, what do eyes look like? Robert's unseeing eyes looked the same as they ever did. 

Whomever came to collect his body shooed everyone into a bedroom. I refused to go. They said I had to. Instead I went outside to have a cigarette. I snuck around the back of the house so I could peer in the windows and watched as they placed his body in a body bag.

One of his daughter's my niece felt I was wrong to disobey. She felt it would be traumatic to see the body being put into the bag. It was not traumatic to me. I saw it done often on TV shows, and wanted to watch it in real life. Whatever. 

I do not know if I gave Robert permission to die. I do not think we talked about his impending death at all. I remember when a cousin visited and was talking about going fishing and stuff. I thought that weird; I mean Robert knew he was on death's door and I think cousin did as well. Yet Robert seemed to enjoy the banter. Again, whatever.

Hospice

 When I was staying with brother, Robert before he died, the hospice nurse and hospice material said that we have to give a loved one permission to die. The soon to be departed also had to give permission to let go. 

Is that true? Makes sense, because the mind and body work together. If one tells self they refuse to die, the subconscious relays that message to the brain. Brain sends signals to various parts of the body to keep the person alive. Or not. I believe that to be true. 

You will not get energetic by repeating over and over again: I am so tired. 

Anyway the terminally ill person will eventually die with or without their own desire or permission from loved ones. 

So I wonder if I was communicating telepathically with my father. Not that I would believe he was clinging to life until I arrived, but who knows, maybe. Once my thoughts went out into the universe, perhaps reaching him at his hospital bed, and he knew I was not gonna rush to his bedside, he simply let go?

That may be a lie*

 Previous post I wrote: that may be a lie re: my father telling me I was irresponsible.

Many years earlier I took a couple of days off from my $1.00 an hour part time job. I wanted to take my children on a vacation. I was irate about the than mother-in-law's lies and broken promises. I will never forget the look on my middle daughter's face when Grandma brought her sister home from a trip to Atlantic City.

Mind you, I had told that woman that she could not take Dawn there this year. The great-grandma called me say8ing she was visiting my in-laws and wanted to take Dawn with her. I said: No, they do not like surprises. She had mom-in-law call giving the okay.  So I put Dawn on bus when it arrived from Scranton with great-grandma. 

That was how Mrs. R manipulated to get her way. Arriving home, opening daughter's suitcase showing off all the things she bought Dawn while in Atlantic City. It was Lori's birthday. Oh what a birthday surprise, one more year the witch broke the promise to take her to Atlantic City ~ next year. The next year that never arrived. 

Lori had never seen the ocean. My ex refused to take us to the shore. Ocean was only for fishing. So I made plans with my sister who lived not far from the Jersey shore. We would stay at her house for a few days, taking day trips to the ocean. Best laid plans. Ex & his mother made it a vacation from hell. 

Anyway, because I had the audacity to take those two days off from work, Dad felt I was irresponsible. My god, I never took a day off from that job. Thus the last conversation I had with my father 6 months before he died, he may not have said I was irresponsible for visiting him in the hospital. 

I do not know if I did take a night off from work. It may have been my scheduled night off. For sure Dad felt I was wasting gas money. 

A quote read somewhere said something like: stop trying to get from people what they can not give. That is why after that visit I gave up on a relationship with my father. No regrets that he died before I got home that day. 

PS: I was the only one of his sons/daughters, that did not attend what turned out to be the last family dinner ~ at a restaurant, his treat to us all. He was angry. But, at the time, I did not want to be irresponsible by taking a day off from work to attend the dinner. 

I was not being spiteful; I was trying to do the right thing according to his rules. Sign.

My Father

 It has been so many years I only have a vague memory of my father's death. I remember I was at work, Tinker Hollow Ale House and Restaurant, standing in the back next to the bar, near the kitchen entrance.

Perhaps my sister Susan had called telling me I should come home, that Dad's death was near. It seems likely, as I would have been standing in the back by the bar after using their telephone. What I remember was a feeling came over me that caused me to think I had to head home at once.

I thought it over. The last conversation with my father months earlier, he told me I was irresponsible. That may be a lie.* He said I should go home. It was getting dark. I might get a flat tire. I told him I was not afraid to drive in the dark (about a hundred mile trip.) I told him I knew how to change a flat tire. He countered with some forgotten thing ~ men, getting kidnapped, raped or some such nonsense. Whatever. 

I made the conscious choice not to leave work. I would go home to visit the following day. I would be responsible, and visit on scheduled day off from work. There was a risk that he would die before I got to see him to make our goodbyes. I decided that I could live with that. 

He died either later that day or in the evening. 

Expected Death

 Expected Death is the title of a post that landed on my Facebook timeline. It came from a site or page: Always With Love.(https://www.facebook.com/alwayswithloveceremonies/)

It was one of those long posts that I often skip over. (What you see in others exists in you, or what bothers you about others is a fault of your own? My tendency towards worldliness.) 

Part of the post reads:

There's a grace to being at the bedside of someone you love as they make their transition out of this world. At the moment they take their last breath, there's an incredible sacredness in the space. The veil between the worlds opens. After reading most of it, I was reminded of the time my sister called me and said: I think she is gone. Oy, I said, You think? Later sis said she said think because she did not want to say died or passed on. I was touched that she called me first, rather than one of my brothers. Or other living sister.

The FB post said that we knew they were going to die, so why the need to panic. It said to be there in the moment, quiet and pause as the deceased's soul transitions from body to the great beyond. Thinking about that phone call, I started thinking about other times we knew they were going to die...

...unused blog, might as well post my thoughts about it here. I mean, these type personal stories are not likely to be interesting even to close family members, right? Maybe I should keep an offline diary.