Easier said than done as airlines no longer give a continental damn about such things so it took me a few days to make arrangements.
In the meantime, bathed in the glorious sunshine of a tropical island, the news was all bad.
Dad was in a coma ... we've almost lost him twice now ... it could be any minute ... HURRY!
Four days later I burst into the room on the forth floor of Candler Hospital and ... there he sat, dressed in a black shirt, black pants, crimson slippers ... staring at his hands ... paying no attention to my Mom and brother standing beside him.
"Hey Dad," I say kneeling in front of him. "You don't look dead."
"Hey Bub," he replies, glancing at me for a long moment before adding, "you look good."
And he has nothing else to say.
Mom and David rush me into the hall to explain how dire everything is.
"He doesn't look like he's dying," I say.
The next day we're back in his room and Dad's again sitting upright, fully clothed, staring at his hands ... the room's dark aside from one light softly glowing above the stainless antiseptic steel sink beside the entrance to the bathroom.
No one's saying much because we're staring at Dad staring at his hands.
The silence is deafening though we hear beeps and buzzes from machines hooked up to patients in other rooms ... Nurses laugh down the hall ... grim, unhappy Doctors deliver good or bad news ... there's groaning and moaning and crying.
The Hospital reeks of antiseptic and death.
"What-do-ya think I should do Mike?" Dad suddenly blurts, still focusing on his hands.
Startled, I literally jump in my seat, see my Mom's staring at me as my brother wants to take charge but Dad's addressing me.
Placing my hand on his knee, staring at his face as he stares at his hands, I ask, "About what Dad?"
He's wringing his hands and it makes me think of Pontius Pilate washing his when Dad's green eyes meet mine as he answers, "I think I'm ready."
The air's immediately sucked out of the tiny room.
Mom gasps placing one hand over her mouth.
David's as still as a statue.
Dad's green eyes have flecks of brown and there's a bit of desperation thrown in but he holds my stare as I ask, "Ready for what Dad?"
His eyes drop and the washing of hands commences again.
"You know," he says staring at them ... "ready."
Sometimes in life, everything stops.
All the hospital noises vanish ... the tiny room is completely silent ... if the world's spinning we can't feel it ... the earth is suddenly formless and empty.
Mom stifles a sob.
"K Dad," I tell him, my hand still on his knee. "If you're ready, we're cool with that."
David almost jumps out of his seat to take my place and speaks in a rush of words.
"Daddy if you're saying you're ready to go be with Jesus, Jesus is ready for you ..." and he says other such things leading up to a closed eyed prayer with Dad who stares at his hands as I stare at my Mom who is crying and can't take her eyes off her husband.
A bit later, Dad's asleep and we're in the hallway,
"The hospital's a horrible place to die," I say matter of factually. "Let's move him to Hospice."
And we do.
Two days later, I sit in the room with him, Dad staring at his hands sitting up in bed, and he asks, "Mike, I heard that when you die ... you ... um ... you mess yourself."
It's the first time he's directly addressed me since the Hospital though I rode in the Ambulance with him as he made the short trek from Reynolds to Eisenhower Street.
"Ummmm," I fumble, completely caught off guard, "yeah Dad. So ... when you die your muscles relax and there's nothing to hold it in."
Silently, without moving, he receives the explanation as I stare at him staring at his hands until he shrugs his shoulder in acceptance and ... that's that!
Over the next couple of days, lots of people come and go and Dad acknowledges some but mostly seems focused on where he's going rather than anything keeping him here.
He waits for me to grab a shower after spending his last night alive with me alone in the room.
Mom arrives with food followed by David and his son Stephen.
My son Jeremy strolls in.
"Something's happening," Stephen, whose already lost his biological father exclaims, and within a minute, Dad leaves the room.
Mom lets out a lone sob from deep, deep inside of the very bottom of her soul.
David jumps up and prays for Jesus to receive Dad.
All of us have our hands on his body.
In no time at all, eight years passes and here I stand.
Dad wasn't especially a religious guy though he served as an Usher for many years in the Baptist Church and those last few years he'd sneak into the next to last pew of the Methodist Church to ... honestly I have no idea why he went ... but he did ... most often alone without Mom.
Dying was something that always frightened him so he hated talking about it, sank into deep depression and drinking bouts should a friend of his pass and really lost it if someone he loved died unexpectedly.
Yet ... there at the end ... he patiently waited on my return from the Caribbean ... was kind enough to let us know he was ready even though we weren't ... worried about the mess he'd leave behind ... it was all quite miraculous somehow.
It was certainly unexpected.
In the kitchen Sarah's placed a photo of Dad very much alive, leaning on an iron wrought staircase in Germany somewhere. He's wringing his hands though he's not staring at them instead focusing on whoever's taking the picture. He's not smiling with the look one gets realizing their picture's being taken and he's not ready.
"Hey Dad, how's the other side?" I ask him almost every day.
He never answers so I don't really know.
But here's what I do know.
My Dad was scared of death but as it came, he got himself ready as best he could, asking for something every now and then but mostly doing it himself ... in his own way.
He asked me for one last bite of ice cream and liked it so much he motioned for more so I fed it to him as he must have fed me once when I was a baby.
Given an honest choice of staying or going, I know he would have rather stayed ... though, those last years it was obvious he was getting tired of everything ... even the things he loved most weren't passionately celebrated anymore ... he gave up lots of things he loved ... his circle of friends grew tiny and tight ... he spent increasingly amounts of time alone.
He made himself so ready that when he died, we weren't all that sad. Don't get me wrong ... it's a bitch losing my Father ... we talked almost every single day ... loved bellying up to a Bar together for cold beers ... Georgia football ... summer and the beach ... cooking and seeing new places and things.
I'd give anything for one more Sunday phone call to dissect yesterday's UGA game.
But he was ready and I supported his decision so, I'm glad he got what he wanted.
It makes me wonder, though, what he was so ready for?
He was skeptical about streets of Gold ... sitting in a choir for eternity singing praises to God struck him as pretty boring ... Lions and Lambs peacefully coexisting meant Bar-B-Que's were likely out of the question ... though I know he'd like to see his Mom and Dad again ... his close friend David ... and his last best friend Billy.
Maybe it was them but ... I've got a feeling ... an intuition if you will ... a hope ... a crazy, inexpiable belief ... a faith if you want to call it that!
"He'll wipe every tear from their eyes," whoever wrote the book of Revelation explains. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things have passed away ... He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new."
That sounds a Hell of a lot better than streets of gold, Angelic choirs endlessly singing the same song over and over, undone Bar-b-Que's.
Ah, but the chance to start over! Make everything new! Wipe all the bad from the past away!
What's not to get excited about?
I think Dad was ready for that.
Ready enough to leave everything he ever loved behind ... for the chance to do it again ... but better this time.
"Maybe some day I'll see you again," we sing every Sunday to start this service.
I think so but ... somehow ... I don't know how ... it'll be better ... and thank God ... we'll all see each other ... and we'll do it again.
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