To Be Surrounded By People Who Love You

When my dad had died eight years earlier, Michael had stood by me. When the sympathy cards stopped coming and I began the terrifying freefall into grief, Michael had been my parachute. Now I stood vigil with him at his father’s deathbed.

I tried to look into Al’s eyes, which had always been playful. Under his silver eyebrows were dark circles; his lids were slightly open, but the eyes were rolled back and showed only white. Clear plastic tubing snaked from the wall to a mask covering his nose and mouth. The nurses said he might make it through the night, but they weren’t sure. His kidneys were shutting down.

Out in the shiny hospital hallway, laundry carts stood silent. It was deep past midnight, and we were alone: a son, a wife, a dying dad, a friend.

Hearing is the last sense to fade, so Michael and his wife, Stephanie, spoke to Al — beautiful, tender words. “I love you, Dad,” Michael said. “I’m here with you, and you won’t be abandoned. You won’t be left alone.”

“Thank you for all you’ve given us,” Stephanie added, holding his hand, which occasionally twitched. Al had always been generous, helping with school expenses or other needs. “Whenever you helped us and we said thank you, you just told us, ‘That’s what dads are for,’ ” Michael said. He paused and repeated, “That’s what dads are for.”

Death changes conversation. It strips away cheap social conventions and calls us either to be silent or to speak from the heart. In that room, the only words that seemed appropriate were the kind that were deep and clear and true. 

Death also changes the calculation. Whatever seemed so important during life — job or money or house or success — doesn’t matter now. When you’re in extremis, the most important thing, apart from being ready to meet God, is to be surrounded by people who love you.

 — Kevin Miller, LeadershipJournal.net 
(October 5, 2000)