Five years later...

May 31, 2001 was a Thursday. A Thursday that didn’t start off any differently than any Thursday had in the previous two months. Alarm, snooze, alarm, shower, breakfast, office. It was just another day, another day of knowing the cancer was terminal, another day supporting Teddy’s decision not to continue with treatment, another day of silently ranting at the unfairness of it all, but most of all, it was another day my dad was alive.

I don’t remember much about the morning, to tell the truth, but in the early afternoon, I started feeling...something...something I still can’t describe. Something that was a combination of anxiety, fear, sadness, unease, and dread in the pit of my stomach. I remember I was listening to my new Mary Chapin Carpenter CD and the song “10,000 Miles” started playing.

Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
I’m going away
but I’ll be back...

And I started to cry. I took the sick feeling in my stomach combined with the song as a sign that Teddy had died. With trembling fingers and a heavy heart, I called my mom. She assured me everything was okay; he was sleeping and the Hospice nurse was due any minute. Even knowing that, I still couldn’t shake that something I was feeling.

Unlocking the door at home, I could hear the phone ringing inside. I managed to grab it before the machine kicked on and I heard mom’s voice. I heard the words she was saying but my mind was struggling to make them make sense. “The nurse said he most likely will not survive through the weekend...” She said a few other things, but I was still stuck on that sentence. I told her I’d be there in 10 minutes. I threw some things in an overnight bag, including my favorite picture of Teddy and me and a letter he had written to me years before, and headed to my parent’s house.

When I got there, Mom, Bradley, Kyle, Kelly and Aunt Claudia had already circled around his bed. My oldest brother, Brad, moved over to make room for me and held my hand as I cried. It was a long hard night. Even though our sadness was palpable, there was also an overwhelming sense of family and love with us as well. May 31, 2001 may have started like any other day, but it ended with all of us at Teddy’s side. It was just after 3am Friday morning when my dad died. And it was obvious that from that moment on, June 1st could never be just another day.