Saying Goodbye

This is a picture of mom with the young man who did her dialysis in Kingman. His name was June. This will forever be a memory engraved in my mind. On Dec 26, 2005, my family left to come home from Kingman. It was a pretty eventful day. I was dreading it, knowing I was leaving mom again, but at the same time, she was doing well enough that I didn't feel like I was really saying goodbye. She was walking some with the walker and doing therapy, we were expecting her recovery. Donna ended up having a detatched retina that day and Nancy, (my other sister that was there to help) took her to the Dr. That meant that Cary and I had to take mom to dialysis and drop her off there, and then head to Vegas to catch our flight home before she was finished with dialysis. We had been together almost 24/7 for 6 weeks. We had a blast, and shared many heart to heart moments. We had talked about the possibility of mom coming to visit us in March, and it really seemed like it could be a possibility. We got mom to dialysis and June came out in the waiting room to get her-meaning it was time. I told mom that we would plan to see her in March and she shook her head "no" and then started to cry. It was in that brief second that I realized she WAS telling me goodbye, and I was completely unprepared for it. Mom was never one for much emotion, she always held everything in. She somehow knew what was ahead and knew this was her last goodbye. It was the hardest thing I have ever done to walk out of that place and leave her there. All of a sudden there were things I wanted to say and there was no time-June was waiting-right there in the puddle of tears! Poor guy! Well, we left and got back to Donna's and found out that her retina had detatched and she had to get to Vegas for surgery. We all loaded up, went back by dialysis to tell mom that Nancy was in charge-I did not go back in-and off we went. I remember getting to the airport, and after all the flights, all the time apart from my family, Cary asked if I should really be leaving. I had to. It was going to be really hard on Nancy-Donna would not be able to do many things and Nancy would be forced to, but I had to come back home and try to find out what my own life was like again. Of course, it wouldn't last long, I would be headed back yet again in just a few days. This day was probably the hardest of any I can remember. The last words she said to me were "I love you" and I know she did! I did make it back in time to tell her the things I wanted to, but of course by that time she was too weak to talk back to me. I know God was good to give us the opportunity to say goodbyes, many times people don't get that opportunity, but it was a hard thing to do.