Exactly As Planned
I don’t care that I’m not a nurse. This was said by my dad to the nurse as he was passing, so close enough as far as I’m concerned. Backstory: my dad had MS. He’d had it since he was 18 years old.
It was diagnosed when he was twenty, he married my mom at 24, had me at 29, and passed just fifteen days days short of turning 45. Six months before that, he was put in hospice. He and my mom were discussing funeral arrangements, and my mom jokingly said,
“You know, Tim, the best thing you could do would be to pass on a Wednesday. That way we can have the body prepared on Thursday, the viewing on Friday, and the memorial on Saturday, so that more people can come.”
The morning we got the call that it was time, my mom, two sisters, and I were about five minutes too late. After we said our goodbyes, the nurse pulled my mom aside and asked if that day had any significance.
It wasn’t even 6:00 in the morning yet, so our mom didn’t even know what day it was, much less whether it was important. The nurse tells her it’s May 21st. No, nothing was coming to mind. The nurse told her that the previous day, he kept asking what day it was and they’d tell him it was the 20th.
He’d look irritated but accept it. That morning, he asked what day it was, and they said, “It’s Wednesday, May 21st”. That was when he smiled, squeezed his favorite nurse’s hand, and was gone almost immediately. It was Memorial Day weekend, and we did just as he and my mom had planned.
And despite many friends being out of town for the holiday, we had over 250 people show up at the memorial service for him, overflowing the tiny church more than it had ever been filled. To his final day, he was trying to make things easier for our family. I miss him. Story credit: Reddit / Ashkela