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Twenty Six years ago today Orson Wells, Yul Brenner and my Mom passed away. She passed away just about this time of day...4:45PM. She struggled with Breast Cancer for about 18 months, finally it went to the bones. It never went to a major organ.

About a month before she passed away she went into a Hospice, stayed for 2 weeks and went home for another 2 weeks before the end came. Her 3 Sisters came to visit while she was in the hospice and that buoyed her spirits so she came home. She didn't take the Morphine because it made her languid and she didn't like that.

Her death was both sad and a relief. Sad because there was a hole where a person once stood and a relief that she wasn't suffering anymore. It was like watching the Titanic sink right in front of your eyes and there wasn't anything anyone could do..you knew she was sinking and just didn't know how much deeper was it going to get before the end (I could see it coming for almost a year before)? Walking out of the hospital that day I saw a tree highlighted against the mountains as the sun was setting..it was like looking up from the bottom of the ocean..we had finally reached the bottom.

On Friday it was 23 years since Dad passed away. Prostrate Cancer got him..it went to his Lung. For the last 6 months of his life he could not stop coughing. He could only sleep in one position and not cough. He had a session of Chemotherapy and he had no real ill affects except for a loss of hair. Two weeks after the treatment he started throwing up anything he ate or drank. When the Oncologist heard that he was incredulous, and said "that shouldn't be happening.".(City of Hope MD). For him it wasn't about being in pain, but imagine the worst case of the Flu ever...finally he wanted to be put into the hospital, and when being admitted his MD told him there wasn't anything that could be done except to make him comfortable. The next morning Dad passed away. He knew what Mom had gone through and was just done. The only thing that held him in life that morning was his feeling that he was leaving me alone.

And that is the story that should be told. Early that morning the Hospital called and siad Dad was going. I got there as quick as I could, finding him in a stae of being comatose with his body turning colder and that death rattle breathing. One of his lady friends was already there, sitting in a chair. After a bit I started to feel conflicted, not an emotional conflict but more of a mental one. Finally I sat down in a chair next to Dads bed, holding his hand. I bowed my head and thought, "God I can't talk to him anymore." Then I started thinking "I failed him, I failed him over and over. I thought I don't feel like I failed him, pulled myself up out of that feeling, looked at my Dad and said, "You didn't fail me." He took a deep breath and two short ones and was gone. My words had released him from this life. He felt he was failing me by leaving me here alone.

Being with my Mom those last hours of her life, I realized that it doesn't get anymore real than death, and that I would never doubt my perceptions again. My Dad was the proof that ones perceptions or Intutions are accurate as those words that I said released him from this life.