Reflections of Life

Dad's last call...

I was sitting in the office of our Texas National Guard company headquarters (where I worked at the time) at 10:15 in the morning when the phone rang. On the other end was my Mom who told me that I needed to get to the hospital emergency room as soon as possible – It concerned my Dad and it didn’t look good.

I got there within minutes but when I walked into the emergency room Mom was sitting inside the examining room area, just outside a cubicle that had the curtains drawn. She really didn’t have to say anything…I knew from the look on her face that I was too late.

She looked up at me with a look of shock and disbelief and told me that Dad had just died…How could that be? He just recently had a physical and had gotten a fairly, good report. In shock myself now, I didn’t really know what to say or do. I had just lost the only Dad that I would ever have, but the realization really hadn’t taken hold yet. After consoling one another for a short time, we made the necessary but almost mechanical phone calls to family members to tell them what had happened.

The next day really wasn’t much better as far as the reality of what had happened. There were people coming and going, bringing food and offering their condolences, but things still didn’t seem real. I took Mom to the funeral home later in the afternoon to make arrangements for the funeral, called the newspaper to relay what we wanted to put in the obituary and picked out a casket that would contain my life-long cheering section...But still, the surreal events that had transpired within the last 24 hours still hadn’t made the transition from a dreamlike state to conscious, hard core reality in my mind. After taking her back home and going to my home for awhile my wife and I got ready to back over to Dad’s place. It wasn’t until we pulled up in front of the house that evening in January of 1988, that the reality of his death hit home.

You see, there was a ritual that went on when we arrived at their home…Dad would open the security gate for us from inside the house, and then he’d walk out to the yard gate next to the carport, stand, and wait on us to get out of the car. He’d then smile and say, “Y’all come on in!” and then he’d walk us to the front door. But on this day something was different. The gate opened as it always had, and we drove up to the carport as we always did, but my Dad wasn’t standing at the gate as he always was…And it was at that moment that an overwhelming sense of grief overcame me so that I could no longer contain the tears and tremendous sense of loss that I’d been suppressing. You see, Dad would never again be at the gate to greet us. He’d never again walk us to the front door…Never, never, never…I was caught up in an overwhelming sense of finality and loss.

As I wept, my wife prayed and tried to console me, but it didn’t help. I thought to myself “Why?” I wasn’t ready for this. I wanted to see him one more time. I thought, “God, if I could only tell him just one last time that I loved him. If I could only give him one last goodbye, then maybe I could deal with this.” Those thoughts had no sooner crossed my mind when God reminded me of something.

A few days before his death, I had called him to wish him a Happy 59th Birthday. We talked for what I now recall was a considerable length of time…much longer than what we usually did. Dad was usually the conversant and I was more of the listener…after all, he was the Dad! On this particular day though, the conversation worked both ways, and I’m thankful it did. We talked about things past, present and future…about life in general and about how happy he was to at last be near the rest of his grandkids for awhile since they had lived in Seattle, Washington. Looking back, it’s almost as though he knew he might not get to chat with me again.

After we had spoken, we both got ready to hang up. Dad said, “Tell the family I said hi and give the grandkids a hug for me…I guess I’d better let you go…and by the way son, I love you.” I said, “I love you too Dad.” He said “Goodbye son” and I said “Goodbye Dad”…those would be the last words we ever spoke to one another.

You see, God in His infinite mercy answered my prayer even before I asked Him…Because of that, I was able to tell my Dad that I loved him one last time and give him one last goodbye…God does answer prayer.