What She Told Her Children After Their Father Died
In one family's worst moment, a mother's words turned sudden loss into a final expression of gratitude and love.
Final days are powerful.
Death scenes are raw, real, and unrehearsed.
When they are ruled by fear, not knowing, and attachment... nobody wins.
I'll never forget Bertie barreling into our ER room to see Harry, her faithful husband of 50 years, just moments after he had died. Harry was a little bald guy who'd probably never bothered anybody in his life.
Bertie grabbed his lifeless shoulders and shook them forcibly as she screamed, "HARRY!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEEE!!?"
I quietly thought, "Go Harry, go! Don't look back. Look for the light!"
It is so different when love leads the way.
On a sunlit morning, many years ago, Charlie, his wife Marianne, and their four school-age children were swimming in a warm, sparkling, blue ocean, having the time of their lives. It was the vacation they had dreamed about for years. In the midst of this perfect happiness, Charlie slipped beneath the surface of the water and did not come back up.
Moments later, his family and the lifeguards carried his motionless body onto the yellow sand beach and began CPR. Even though paramedics arrived in a flash, and the lifesaving effort continued as they raced him into our ER, Charlie was not responding. (We later learned that he had had a massive heart attack and was gone right from the start).
After all of our resuscitative efforts in the ER did not revive him, it was clear that Charlie was gone and nothing was going to bring him back.
Out in the waiting room, his wife and four children sat silently wrapped in beach towels, with sand on their bare feet. I walked them in to huddle around Charlie. They all reached out to touch him.
Marianne leaned over, cradled his head, kissed him ever so gently, and said, "Oh Charlie..."
"You have given us so much...
that we will all have enough...
to last us for the rest of our lives."
"Thank You Charlie!"
"We love you, Charlie!"
"We will always love you."
"Ohhh... how we love you..."
That was what she gave her children.
That was what she gave herself.
That was what she gave Charlie.
I'd bet my life he heard every word.
Love like this honors the one who had to go.
Love like this carries everyone through.
Love like this turns darkness into light.
