The Wonderful Good-Night

My grandpa died last night.

At about 3:30 this morning (hadn't been sleeping for more than a half hour or so) i heard Mele, our caregiver knocking on my parent's bedroom door.

We went into the bedroom where my grandma was laying next to him clutching his hand...he was gone.

My dad woke up Steve and John. We turned off the oxygen. My grandma began to weep bitterly...

I won't go into much detail...but needless to say the following hours were a mixture of sadness and peace, of mourning and relief. Relief because my grandpa is finally free of his suffering...free of his wretched earthly shell...and he is seeing Jesus Christ in person...right now!

I still can't believe that all there is is my grandma now. She sat for the longest time by his side...stroking his face, touching his ears, his chin, his snowy white hair...telling me about what a wonderful man he was. And he was.

My grandfather was An Air Force Flight Surgeon and served in WWII. He was an OBGYN and delivered over 5,000 babies with those beautiful hands of his. Before he fell prey to the despair of his deteriorating eyesight, he was kind. He was loving and happy and jovial. He sang a lot. I remember skipping with him in the backyard. I remember him drawing pictures for my sister and i...

My mom has been going through old photos of him when he was truly her daddy. A tall, handsome smiling man holding his 3 children.
Funny enough, though i never knew him as that man, that's how i'm beginning to think of him. Or at least i'm trying to remember him the way he was when i was little.

He was the love of my grandmother's life. Nearly sixty years of marriage...and never was there a day when their loyalty waned even the smallest bit. She knows he is in glory...she just doesn't know how to cope without him here on earth to be her other half, her ally, her companion.

She's finally asleep...after a long night of watching and waiting. She was the only one to see him go.
As i was getting her back to bed around 7 this morning we were talking about the good things about what had just occurred. About his passing out of this fallen world. About his rebirth in eternity. And on Good Friday no less...(:
About his final journey, as my grandma put it, "into the wonderful good-night."