Regrets

We came home tonight and we must have left the light on in his room. Just does not seem right that he isn't in there reading, or listening to classical music. I miss the creaks in the floor that sounded familiar and let you know he was there. I could have swore I heard him coughing in a way to clear his throat and the chair squeak as though we was about to get up.. and I had to just shake it off. The mind plays tricks on you if you let it.

It was exactly a week after the tornadoes, two weeks now.. when I got the call. By the time they called to tell me he was passing away... I got to call my mom and tell her to come watch the kids and call Kevin to tell him what was going on, they beeped in and he was gone. And that was it.

My mom still came and I went up there anyways.. his body was being donated so there would be no other time to see him ever again.

He looked better than he did in the two weeks leading up to his death. I almost thought they made a mistake and he just was sleeping really heavy. I did move his arm.. just out of sheer need to make sure.

I went to the nursing home every single day since he got admitted except the two days prior to his passing. Monday was William's doctor appointment and that took all day, he was sick and lungs were irritated then Tuesday Amelia and I both just got slammed with the same thing luckily that was the day the power finally came back on and we could go home and just sit and be ill in our own place. Kevin did manage to grab up a generator on his way back from Georgia so we had a light, tv, and the fridge, but that was it.

I said to myself Wednesday we will go up there, we all are still a little sick but we should go. I drove past looked in back and the kids were out like a light. I really wish I would have woke them both up and made them go in just one last time. Just for 10 minutes... I wish I could say I wasn't so exhausted that getting both sleeping toddlers out of the car into the nursing home didn't seem like an ordeal. Had I known it was the night...if I could go back in time I would wake them up.. and go. Not saying it would have made that phone call at 11pm any easier... but I wouldn't have regrets.

This man.. This man I had taken care of up until two weeks prior.. until I couldn't physically even with my husband take care of him anymore.. I saw every single day for a year at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.. This man.. the last two days.. his passing although so sweetly peaceful for him... was horrid for me.

This man checked the lottery daily to see if he had won... always bought a ticket. I see him now driving his Z3 up to Tennessee to buy his tickets and return back to his house. He might not have won the monetary lottery, but he won it in the fact that 99.9 % of the way he could have died would be horrific.. he was that .001% that just fell asleep. He was in no pain.. and at least I can find some comfort in that.

He should be here. My kids should be going up to his house every weekend to just go out to eat like we always do. Instead it was a horrific surgery on his birthday last year, and a year of every day having memories with him... packing 20+ years of life into almost one year. It's frustrating and infuriating to think something as simple as a dentist appointment could have prevented all this.. but also extremely sad. It took this man who finally learned to let people in after all the disappointment in his life ..a terminal illness to do so. All he ever wanted.. except a cure for cancer, he got his last year of life... and I like to think I had a big part in doing it.

He died.. the first night I was alone at the house , the first time he wasn't there and Kevin wasn't there. It's going to be really hard to adjust to having no one again. As much as I think I helped him with everything.. he did just as much for me .

Regrets suck... hopefully I can deal with mine and move on... life is too short for this depression...

Elizabeth