day 1: a surprise and yet not

I knew, of course, as soon as my brain woke up enough to realize a phone was ringing and my eyes simultaneously took in the bedside clock display of 4:55 am: it could have been a wrong number, of course, but I knew.

Still, it wasn't supposed to happen this time. Yes, Dad was very, very sick, but every single doctor, every single nurse kept reassuring us that he would recover; Guillain-Barr� was scary, certainly, but every case they'd treated at the hospital eventually had walked out--albeit after a long, often painful therapy and recuperation--under their own power.

So while I instinctively knew what the call was about last Thursday morning--especially once I saw the phone number on my caller ID indicating my sister's or mother's calling card--it was still at many levels completely unexpected. In fact, Mom was convinced that Dad had been doing better, though Wednesday apparently saw a couple of setbacks but still nothing that indicated any increased risk of death.

We'd been prepared for his death before--as much as one can be, at least--after his heart attack in 1994 but particularly during his severe and almost intractable bout of peritonitis from April through September last year. But after his recovery from both of those, and his amazing good health after his kidney transplant this past January, everything seemed right with the world, and none of us really expected he wouldn't leave the hospital with us in a few weeks or, at most, a month.

The past eight months before the sudden appearance of the Guillain-Barr� were a new lease on life for Dad, and I'm so grateful now that after having endured so much for nearly ten years he had a joyful, active period before the end; he accomplished so much around the house, and was even mowing my grandparents' and sister's lawns "because he could."

In the end, though, it was everything he'd been through that just made it impossible for him to survive the tremendous stresses upon his body that the Guillain-Barr� was creating; after three weeks on a ventilator, his heart just apparently wasn't strong enough to keep him going. I just hope that he didn't feel too much pain those last three weeks, during most of which he was kept sedated; I know, at least, that he's beyond any more pain now and, given his negative reaction to the physical therapy with which he's had to deal in the past, the long, painful recuperation and therapy--to relearn how to walk and how to speak--after Guillain-Barr� likely would have been much more than he'd have wanted to endure.

My family, at least, have the strength of their faith and their absolute assurance that Dad is in Heaven, to help sustain them. I have only my memories and my love to ensure that he lives on in some fashion while I yet do.