It was the Fourth of July and we couldn’t even go out to the creek bank to watch the fireworks, so we watched them on TV. Dad was on the couch and I settled up to my Mother on her hospital bed and cradled her head on my shoulder. At one point she simply exhaled very deeply, it felt like a decision. It seemed different to me but I didn’t make much of it. I tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight. Dad hobbled over to her hospital bed and took his holy water to bless her forehead and pray. Then, leaned over the bed and kissed her goodnight. Like he did every night. In the morning I came downstairs, like on any other day, except Mom had a trail of dark fluid leaking from her mouth. I cleaned her up and changed the sheets, then decided to call 911. She was quiet that morning and didn’t want to even laugh about the handsome young paramedics that took her to the emergency room. I didn’t know she would die this day but I wanted her to be cared for. The ambulance took her to the hospital. We were with her there and, little by little, we realized this may be it. The old man’s back was an excruciating, throbbing, aching, pain. It was the worst agonized suffering he had ever experienced in his whole life. He could only stand for seconds at a time but he forced himself up again and again and again and again, grabbing and scraping at the rails on the side of the gurney, trembling and shaking from his own pain and the even greater scorching pain in his heart until he fell back into his chair only to immediately try again. He struggled and strained to pull himself up from his wheelchair to lean over his tears (he had to be strong enough to not let them out just now) and across the bars of the gurney, to stretch himself in incredible pain to desperately reach the lips of his lover because he knew she was dying. He would have torn off his own skin off if he could have stopped it. Glenna can’t be leaving!, this just can’t be happening!!! Oh God, NO, this just can’t be happening!!! It tore sharply down into his inner core with the the severest test of his faith this life could ever deliver. I could only stand by and try to protect him from falling on the floor. Again and again he struggled up until he kissed her on the lips again and again and all he could squeak out, over and over again, was “I love you!” “I love you!” I love you!” A torture, a terror, “What should I say, what should I do? Oh God! HELP ME! This just can’t be over now! I can’t be without my wonderful and beautiful woman! My Glenna! I won’t hear her call me Bob again or tell me what to. I don’t know how to be with this! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! AUUGHHH! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! His entire existence was torn wide open with a huge savage merciless knife. And, then, suddenly, like a miracle, for a moment, a light shined down from heaven and she came back to her body out of her dementia in a solid moment and said “I love you too!” It was not light of this world but it did come down and appeared as illuminated beams. It was a sensation of genuine peace, it was crystal clear and beautiful. It appeared just like a light was beaming down from above. It was from a dimension, we who live here, do not yet see or know. Like a clarity of consciousness that is eternally young and vibrant. There was peace on her face and Dad was flooded with too many tears to even know what to think or feel. She came back for one last moment and was crystal clear for one final moment. Glenna was there! Mom was there! She was smiling! She looked at us with love! She told us she loved us! And, that was the last time we saw her. And, the last time we heard her voice and the last thing we heard her say. He just knew he loved this woman. And, she loved him too, with every part of their hearts. She always loved me, and all her children, too, no matter what we did or didn’t do. This was an agony that was too huge for him to bear. This was the end of this physical plane’s relationship. Then, they took her away to a hospital room. Momentary hope. I took him home to eat something, to try and take care of him during this difficult time, but they called us right back to the emergency room She had been placed in Intensive Care and the Doctor took Dad and me to private room. “Do you want extra ordinary measures?” The Doctor said. Dad looked at me with questioning WIDE desperate eyes in agony. I told him it was up to him. He was the Patriarch and it had to be fully his choice. With a strength of will he said she had suffered enough. Then we went to chapel while we were waiting. We prayed and asked God to bring her peace if it was her time to go. When we got back the nurse came out and told us she had died. While we were praying for her, she left. That hit me like a tremendous wall of bricks, a HUGE thick invisible wave that physically knocked me off my feet. And, Dad was paralyzed in place, like all the light and warmth in the world had all been turned off forever. I sat on the floor, crying like a child, next to his chair with my head on his knee. We went in to see her body and I held her hand one last time, and after the others left, had one last moment alone with her. While trembling, I petted her face, talking to her while I gave her a final good night kiss, and told her I loved her. I tried to see if I could see her spirit hovering around. I hope she heard me somehow. I didn’t see it but I’m sure it was there. I was in shock. My blood pressure went through the roof and I had an immense headache. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. I adjusted the blankets one last time and tucked her in, for one final time, before her eternal sleep. Then, I forced myself to leave the room, looking back at her until I couldn’t see her body any more. Then, in a daze, Dad and I went home to share the last year of his life, where he sat with her ashes till the day he died too. Every night he blessed them with holy water and put his hand there to pray and then he kissed the urn. He made me promise to mix their ashes when he died and,when that day came, I forced the mortician to let me watch, to be sure it was done. It was done. Until my siblings took their ashes and buried them without even telling me or honoring their burial wishes. After five hard years, and in my grief, God decided I needed even more pain to purify my soul. Now I’m writing this book until the day I will have a huge final event for them. With ALL their children and grand and great grand children celebrating the people they gave life to. There will be the military honor guard and a choir, flags and balloons. We’ll hold hands and let them go into eternity knowing that they succeeded in making a loving family. I will invite you, too, dear reader to attend as well and you can celebrate your own love for someone you love and stand for living in a world of people who hold love and honor as the cornerstones of their lives. Out of the ashes of these days, we will leave the new children a vision of the possibility of love, beauty and honesty. Bob and Glenna, Mom and Dad, wherever you are now. Even if only as an idea. It is a beautiful idea. And I will always love you with all my heart, soul and being. ============================================ Finally, listen to the video below and click on Mom’s Voice Mail at the same time. She had called me when she was out west visiting Nancy, my elder sister and their first child. Now, I like to pretend it is her calling me from heaven to tell me she loves me. I’m sure she would say the same to you too. Darry Bob

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO VIEW THIS PAGE

I designed this page to give you an emotional experience. If you follow these instructions you will really understand the way my Father felt. 1. Click the video above 2. Immediately start to read the story below while listening to the music

It was the fourth of July and we couldn’t even go out to the creek bank to watch the fireworks, so we watched them on TV. Dad was on the couch and I settled up to my Mother on her hospital bed and cradled her head on my shoulder. At one point she simply exhaled very deeply, it felt like a decision. It seemed different to me but I didn’t make much of it. I tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight. Dad huddled over to her hospital bed and took his holy water to bless her forehead and pray. Then, leaned over the bed and kissed her goodnight. Like he did every night. In the morning I came downstairs, like on any other day, except Mom had a trail of dark fluid leaking from her mouth. I cleaned her up and changed the sheets, then decide to call 911. She was quiet that morning and didn’t want to even laugh about the handsome young paramedics that took her to the emergency room. I didn’t know she would die this day and I wanted her to be cared for. The ambulance took her to the hospital. We were with her there and, little by little, we realized this may be it. The old man’s back was an excruciating, throbbing, aching, pain. It was the worst agonized suffering he had ever experienced in his whole life. He could only stand for seconds at a time but he forced himself up again and again and again and again, grabbing and scraping at the rails on the side of the gurney, trembling and shaking from his own pain and the even greater scorching pain in his heart until he fell back into his chair only to immediately try again. He struggled and strained to pull himself up from his wheelchair to lean over his tears (he had to be strong enough to not let them out just now) and across the bars of the gurney, to stretch himself in incredible pain to desperately reach the lips of his lover because he knew she was dying. He would have torn off his own skin off if he could have stopped it. Glenna can’t be leaving!, this just can’t be happening!!! Oh God, NO, this just can’t be happening!!! It tore sharply down into his inner core with the the severest test of his faith this life could ever deliver. I could only stand by and try to protect him from falling on the floor. Again and again he struggled up until he kissed her on the lips again and again and all he could squeak out, over and over again, was “I love you!” “I love you!” I love you!” A torture, a terror, “What should I say, what should I do? Oh God! HELP ME! This just can’t be over now! I can’t be without my wonderful and beautiful woman! My Glenna! I won’t hear her call me Bob again or tell me what to. I don’t know how to be with this! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! AUUGHHH! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! His entire existence was torn wide open with a huge savage merciless knife. And, then, suddenly, like a miracle, for a moment, a light shined down from heaven and she came back to her body out of her dementia in a solid moment and said “I love you too!” It was not light of this world but it did come down and appeared as illuminated beams. It was a sensation of genuine peace, it was crystal clear and beautiful. It appeared just like a light was beaming down from above. It was from a dimension, we who live here, do not yet see or know. Like a clarity of consciousness that is eternally young and vibrant. There was peace on her face and Dad was flooded with too many tears to even know what to think or feel. She came back for one last moment and was crystal clear for one final moment. Glenna was there! Mom was there! She was smiling! She looked at us with love! She told us she loved us! And, that was the last time we saw her. And, the last time we heard her voice and the last thing we heard her say. He just knew he loved this woman. And, she loved him too, with every part of their hearts. She always loved me, and all her children, too, no matter what we did or didn’t do. This was an agony that was too huge for him to bear. This was the end of this physical plane’s relationship. Then, they took her away to a hospital room. Momentary hope. I took him home to eat something, to try and take care of him during this difficult time, but they called us right back to the emergency room She had been placed in Intensive Care and the Doctor took Dad and me to private room. “Do you want extra ordinary measures?” The Doctor said. Dad looked at me with questioning WIDE desperate eyes in agony. I told him it was up to him. He was the Patriarch and it had to be fully his choice. With a strength of will he said she had suffered enough. Then we went to chapel while we were waiting. We prayed and asked God to bring her peace if it was her time to go. When we got back the nurse came out and told us she had died. While we were praying for her, she left. That hit me like a tremendous wall of bricks, a HUGE thick invisible wave that physically knocked me off my feet. And, Dad was paralyzed in place, like all the light and warmth in the world had all been turned off forever. I sat on the floor, crying like a child, next to his chair with my head on his knee. We went in to see her body and I held her hand one last time, and after the others left, had one last moment alone with her. While trembling, I petted her face, talking to her while I gave her a final good night kiss, and told her I loved her. I tried to see if I could see her spirit hovering around. I hope she heard me somehow. I didn’t see it but I’m sure it was there. I was in shock. My blood pressure went through the roof and I had an immense headache. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. Mom is gone now. I adjusted the blankets one last time and tucked her in, for one final time, before her eternal sleep. Then, I forced myself to leave the room, looking back at her until I couldn’t see her body any more. Then, in a daze, Dad and I went home to share the last year of his life, where he sat with her ashes till the day he died too. Every night he blessed them with holy water and put his hand there to pray and then he kissed the urn. He made me promise to mix their ashes when he died and,when that day came, I forced the mortician to let me watch, to be sure it was done. It was done. Until my siblings took their ashes and buried them without even telling me or honoring their burial wishes. After five hard years, and in my grief, God decided I needed even more pain to purify my soul. Now I’m writing this book until the day I will have a huge final event for them. With ALL their children and grand and great grand children celebrating the people they gave life to. There will be the military honor guard and a choir, flags and balloons. We’ll hold hands and let them go into eternity knowing that they succeeded in making a loving family. I will invite you, too, dear reader to attend as well and you can celebrate your own love for someone you love and stand for living in a world of people who hold love and honor as the cornerstones of their lives. Out of the ashes of these days, we will leave the new children a vision of the possibility of love, beauty and honesty. Bob and Glenna, Mom and Dad, wherever you are now. Even if only as an idea. It is a beautiful idea. And I will always love you with all my heart, soul and being. ==================================================================== Finally, listen to the video below and click on Mom’s Voice Mail at the same time. She had called me when she was out west visiting Nancy, my elder sister and their first child. Now, I like to pretend it is her calling me from heaven to tell me she loves me. I’m sure she would say the same to you too. Darry Bob

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO VIEW THIS PAGE

I designed this page to give you an emotional experience. If you follow these instructions you will really understand the way my Father felt. 1. Click the video above 2. Immediately start to read the story below while listening to the music

Listen to the video below and click on Mom’s Voice Mail at the same time.