Part of the Scenery

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non-subject: death
aww ~ 1/16/13
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My father died alone on a snowy Friday in February, 1996.
He died in a hospital room in Richmond, Virginia, at McGuire Veterans Administration Hospital in the spinal cord injury unit.

Dad had been in the hospital for months recuperating from surgery; colon surgery I think it was. As a quadriplegic he needed special care and McGuire had one of the best SCI units.

But the hospital didn't call the family right away when Dad had gone into a coma-like state two days prior on Wednesday. I don't know why. A nurse finally called my sister late Thursday night, I think it was. By then none of us could get to Richmond; the east coast was in a snowstorm and the interstates were closed. My sister lived in DC and the rest of us in North Carolina.

Mom died alone on a cold day in January, 2009.
She died in a nursing home room in Hickory, North Carolina, at Brian Center.
We, the children, were with Mom her last days of life.
But she died when no one was in the room.
Hospice had told us that she may want to die alone.

Mom was the last of her eleven siblings to die.
Dad was the second of his two siblings to die.

Both my parents are dead.

All my aunts and uncles are dead.

I never knew any of my grandparents; they all died before I was born or when I was an infant.

Mom and Dad died in the winter, the season of hibernation and death.

But in spring, new life begins.

I wonder if the earth has always been that way?

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