Home

I arrived last night, to a white, windy world. Fresh snow fell as Husband drove the one lane on the interstate at about 45 mph allowing me time to tell him of the trip: my arrival there, how before one hour had passed I was by my father's side staying at the hospital the whole afternoon and evening. How I went home to sleep while my brother Pedro stayed overnight, and returning the next morning to take my niece Julia's shift who wasn't feeling well, and ready to spend the day and overnight as well. Slowly that day he became more and more quiet both in body and mind as I helped the nurses with the many activities. The hospital in Brazil requires that someone stays with the patient, and there are many things we are asked to help with, from changing him to doing his respiratory therapies to helping transport him down several floors on his bed to have a procedure done. It all made me feel very useful and that my trip down was of real value to the people who had taken so many shifts with him up to that point. 

All this, and more, I told Husband. How long I spent holding my dear father's hand, which was warm, and soft. How that evening, after the male nurse had come and spent some time settling him for the night, adding food to his newly inserted feeding tube and all of his meds and IV, his breathing became very irregular, and very quiet, and then he died. I was so priviledged to be the one with him. How at some point I went to get the nurse and then it all happened so fast from there... The medical team was called and I wasn't allowed in the room for about 20 minutes.... I paced the hallway praying but in my heart I knew it was over. Soon I was on my knees on the hospital floor, by his bed, where he lay with the sheet over his body. I said Hail Marys one after the other and the tears fell, but it was peaceful and serene. His agony was over and his face no longer showed his suffering. 

Husband listened as I told him about all my siblings who came for the wake and burial, and stayed for the weekend, the music we played and sang together, and how so important and good it was that I was there, and how it is so different to go through the death of a parent with your siblings around you. I  hurt for so long and so deeply after Mother died because I was not to able to be there then. 

I will begin to post pictures and post them retroactively. I took photos with the iPhone and iPad and I didn't have wifi there, so only now I am able to do this. 

I am happy to be home. I feel as if I was gone for so long. I missed Husband and the girls, the comforts of home, being home. Everything is so clean and nice, there was a nice dinner and I had fresh sheets on the bed, where I slept for almost 12 hours! The plane trip back was dreadful as usual with its own set of delays and bad weather. We had it planned for me to spend a long layover in Dallas where I was going to see Number Three and when they told me in São Paulo that because of their delays I had missed that connection I cried and cried. Oh it is so good to be home.