Angels on the Head of a Pin

There was one common desire that took precedence over all others, and it became an answered prayer.  This desire, simply stated, was that our Dad would not be alone during his labor of dying.  I believe that the eight of us - his children and our spouses, and the nine more of us - his grandchildren, and, in their own tender way,  three of his very young great-grandchildren, too - we were all united in this longing and commitment to Hugh Little, and to each other, that he would not be alone in his last journey.  Daddy's own brothers were heartened, I believe, and their wives, by our steadfastness in physically being with him.  It was not a decision that any of us even wrestled with, it was as natural as breathing, it was all we could do.

My youngest son is the very new father of the fourth great grandchild. He lives far away from SC, in CA. He was the last of the grandchildren to travel to be with his Granddaddy. He observed how much like the beginning of life this end of life is, and not in the obvious way of likening it to childbirth and labor.  What he likened it to was how, as a brand new parent, you watch the baby.  You watch the breath, you can only be comforted by seeing and hearing the breath.  It was just like that, watching the death of a much loved one and being comforted by the sound of his breath.  It was like the soothing sound of the ocean's rhythms while wading in the shoreline surf.  We all listened as the time wound down, to the changing of the breath, and finally to the very last breath.  That very last breath, it sounds like the very last breath, and then he left the flesh.  That leaving, it is so vivid.

I do not know if it is the way I want to die, with so many people in and out and all around me. There was a beloved throng around my Dad from almost every early morning until nightfall, every single day, from the beginning of his days in the hospital through all his days in the beautiful Hospice of the Foothills.  His youngest brother, who is 75 years old, remarked, "Hugh has always been such an extrovert."  I think Daddy savored all that company more than his offspring did!  He had three pastors in the room at one time on one day. Other days there were Baptist deacon visits followed by Presbyterian elder visits, along with so many accompanying warm-hearted women!  And those hospice nurses - in and out and in and out of his room- they were watching us watching our Daddy.  They showered him with attention and tender mercies.  They showered us with love and understanding.

We all had our own part to play, our own times to be there and our times to be away. They were short times, those times away.  At the end it certainly seemed orchestrated from on high, the way he crossed over, the way he passed from our hands to the hands of the eternal.  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?