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Two Phone Calls
By Mona Lease
Hi, all!! The following will sound sad at times. And at times - sappy
and sentimental. But - it's all true.
She called me crying. I knew before she told me. I had spoken to her
two days before that. She had held the phone up to her husband's ear. I
said hi. I heard bub, bub, bub. He was heavily dosed with morphine for
the cancer pain.
She had been telling me that she wanted one last good-bye...one last
hug...one last kiss. She told me she had been praying for it. She told
me that she watched him take his last breath at 5 pm on Ash Wednesday.
The nursing home had let her have a bed in his room. She slept there
most nights. At 3 am on Ash Wednesday - the morphine wore off and he
was awake and speaking intelligibly. She got in his bed and they held
hands and talked for five hours. He had no pain. The nurse came in with
the pain meds at 8 am. He died nine hours later.
Through smiles and tears - she's doggedly facing the future. She holds
on to the last five hours they shared together. They are worth more
than all of the gold on this earth.
Another caller told me that love was not taught. No one said that you
did not need to spend a lot of money. No one said that an "I love you"
really means more. No one said that we all want to be told that we are
worth something or that we have something to offer or that we have done
something rightly. No one said that for the love to "heal" - it needs
to be "applied."
Then I got to wondering. When we, as a people, got involved in the
quest for "money" and all that is associated with it - almost like a
search for the "Holy Grail" - did we sacrifice love to do it? Looking
backward - the one thing that was a constant - that was a "living
force"...if you will - was love...in all of it's forms. Remember -
Grandma's homemade pies...garden-fresh vegetables...the smell of bed
sheets fresh off of the clothesline...Grandpa's stories of "when I was
a kid" over a bowl of ice cream...making home-made ice cream...Dad
showing your brother how to hit a "homer"...? Remember practicing
throwing a baseball at stacked-up cans in preparation for "the Fair?"
Remember "the Fair" having good stuff to win?
As for the woman whose husband died - I never asked her what the
conversation contained. I'm guessing it had nothing to do with money or
bills or the tv or the computer or, or, or. My question is: "If those
things are not important at the end - why should they be so important
at any other time? From the woman who just lost her husband: "Tell
those you love now, while they can still enjoy your words, that they
are worth something to you - that they have made your life better. She
said that love is what the stores are trying to sell. But, love lives
in a body with a beating heart - not something made of paper."
Remember the kiddies and our service people. Take good care of the
furry and feathered ones out there. Be safe and healthy. See ya next
time. Ever Toodles!! MONA
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