Alarms

It dawned on me last night that I no longer have to keep the ringer in the ‘on’ position at night.  I use my phone as my alarm clock – I have for years now; I think I had a bad experience with an alarm clock not working or being knocked out in a power outage and have used my phone since then.  Mistakenly, I would turn it off from time to time.  I say “mistakenly” because it was off the morning that the hospital called to tell me my Mom had been placed in ICU because she couldn’t breathe.  I saw the call pretty quickly after I missed it – I only missed it by about 5 minutes, but it was the last time I slept with the ringer off.  Every night that she was in the hospital, after we knew there was no hope, I secretly hoped my phone would ring with the call that said she coded and we had to decide what to do.  Ironically, that’s the call I got for my Dad – not in the middle of the night…somewhere around 7:45pm, but still.  As I write this, I wonder if that was some cosmic crap that my Mom somehow pulled on us.  We wanted to get that call for her – I wanted it so that my Dad didn’t have to make the decision that he ultimately had to make with my help; I did not want that call for my Dad and  I didn’t expect it either.  He was doing okay when I left, better in fact, and then it all went to hell after we were gone.  I still wonder if somehow he knew we were gone and something inside him said “it’s okay now, you can let go”.  I think that’s what happened with my Mom, even though she fought up until the very end.

And now, I can turn the ringer off because there shouldn’t be unexpected medical emergencies in the middle of the night anymore.  There shouldn’t be any more worry that something will happen to one of them and I’ll need to bounce out of bed and run off in the middle of the night in a panic.  Those days are (hopefully) gone.  Along with both of my parents.  There are days that it just seems so unreal to be alone, without them.  As the days move on, the first signs of the impending season change are starting to pop up, I try to not think of him or her with sadness but with happiness and with smiles.  Some days it’s just so hard to do it.  I believe that he is in a better place and he is happy, but what I would give to know that he is still with us.  What I would give to still have him here!  Every time I think of all the good that he did, all of the people that he touched and all the people who he meant so much to, it just makes me sad.  An entire community mourned him two months ago and to some extent,  I hope they are still mourning – at least in a way that makes them remember him, with more joy than sadness.  Sometimes I go to the Knights of Columbus website and look at the pictures that are posted of him from years ago and they make me smile; it was there that he was happy and I hope that he is smiling that same smile, and laughing that same laugh, where ever he may be.