Floating on the Air

"I feel like floating on the Air." ~Father, 18 January 1980

It's seventeen minutes to midnight. That means today will become yesterday when Cinderella Godmother's clock strikes twelve. I better start this before the golden coach turns into a pumpkin and something turns into a rat!

Yes, if there is an event that calls for celebrating life, there is also a moment we can stop to think and remember those who are asleep.

January 18 is our late Father's 33rd Sleeping Anniversary. Take note of the word "sleep". He's down below the ground for that long now. I must admit, I have almost forgotten his anniversary. Normally, I dream before his anniversary comes. Not this year though. But something just popped into my mind, the minute I woke up this morning. The date! January 18.

The words above was his last! I was not home when he finally drew his last breath. There were brethren from the Seventh Day Adventist Church whom I requested to pray for him. He died bedridden of a long sickness that involved complications with lungs and kidney. No it was not cancer. He was not a smoker or a drinker. As to the kidney part, it must have had been attributed to his high salt intake. I knew! So I was not surprised when in the last hour, he was diagnosed with nephritis.

He got punctured lungs when he dived down a deep sea water trying to retrieve a military implement that accidentally went down the water while in one of his boat journeys. Whether it was a job related journey or family matters, I forgot now.

I am not sure if he was able to retrieve said implement which was a must otherwise he couldn't retire from the service, let alone enjoy his service benefits. But that was the beginning of his lifelong journey to agony and so were we. His resilience and active life in the military helped him to keep going. We kept going too!

In life I've learned that we should not push our body to the limit. If we need to stop to recharge, then by all means, Do!

Hence, when my doctor told me to Stop, I stopped! We need to know ourselves. Though I was never a sickly person in my youth and that there were few trials on the road to mend in between, I feel so grateful that my body is never bruised with medications like feeding myself a concoction from a smorgasbord of different pills.

It was not even like that with my father. He was a Paramedic himself during his active service, and he was definitely a very stubborn man when it came to medications. That surely vexed my mother who did not understand the pharmacological and physiological point of views about medicines. I inherited that paramedical recalcitrance from him.

Anyway, as I've been always a realist and practical, at that time our father was with us and observed his condition, I was already fully aware of where he would lead to. His sunset was at hand and it was only a matter of time; slowly and cumulatively. It wasn't even long before that he was discharged from the military hospital and was sent home with an eye catarrhact operation. He was sent home to recuperate, but not...

So on that morning I left for work, (I had to work or we had nothing to eat), I had no idea that was my last time to say "goodbye" to my father. Is it a wonder I hate goodbyes?

My prayer request from the Church to which my parents never had any connection was granted. It was the church I attended at that time and I knew someone of influence in that church who directed my request to the Pastor. A group of men was sent to visit the sick and to pray for the sick. And it was our father.

Before the praying group left right after they finished their prayer and Bible reading, they asked our father while shaking his frail hand, "How are you feeling, Brod?" He swiftly but clearly replied, "I feel like floating on the air."

Then our mother ushered them to the door as a matter of courtesy to bid goodbye after she thanked them for coming. When she came back in to the bedroom where our father laid, she found him asleep. It could be possible that when our father said his final words, that was the time he drew his last breath of life and he's gone forever!

While in the office (I worked in a local radio station), the phone rang. It was my sister-in-law, the family news bearer, who told me of what happened at home. I dropped everything down, and hurried home.

There I found my father quietly laying with his eyes still opened. I then placed my hands over them and they closed.

I grieved inwardly. I did not get much chance to cry out ... because I saw the vulnerability of my mother weakening on her own. I turned to comfort her instead and made sure she was okay emotionally and sanely.

In our impoverished situation, God showed us the way. I am convinced until now how He put wisdom to my mind to think of what to do so we could give our father a decent burial with dignity.

By right we could not afford to pay for his coffin. Being a member of a local Veterans Associations, he was accorded a Military Funeral and Honour. We were thankful that in his last hour, he was given such a dignity.

In life, it is very important that our relationship with humankind is fair and just. Both my parents did not die in the place where we were known, but they died in a place where they were totally strangers. Somehow, within a short period of time, they gained respect and admiration from among the neighborhood as can be testified when our mother followed our father a year after.

For how the people treated them in life and in death was a great testimony for me to comprehend that they "reap of what they sow." And that is Genuine Kindness.

Photos:

Mother

Sisters