One Moment In Time.........................

My Daddy My Hero......... Charles (Charlie) Miller.

The anniversary of my dads passing is fast approaching and I'm sad when I think of him.

I miss him terribly, but that's not the only reason I'm sad.

There are two moments in time I wish I could change....one is ever having heard of SL(which I rarely play anymore. THANK GOD, I seem to have broken that addiction) and the other is being in the room when my daddy passed away.

I loved my daddy, worshiped him as only a little girl can adore her daddy. He was the best daddy anyone could ever have. So selfless, so generous, so bigger-than-life. Don't get me wrong, daddy had his flaws, but they were such small ones I don't believe my daddy ever had an enemy in his life.
Daddy fought his cancer bravely, giving us more time than we thought he had. Every drug they wanted him to try, he took. Every procedure they wanted to try, he gave permission for.

The week before I was to come to work for the hospital site I work for, Daddy finally was through with it all. He asked to come home.

I finished work on Friday morning and told my boss I would start work at the new site on Monday, I wanted to spend the weekend with my daddy. I came home and changed and spent the day with him. He looked so good....his cheeks were rosy, he felt good enough to eat a bit. I crawled up on the bed with him, laid my head on his shoulder and held his hand as we talked about things I had done as a little girl and things he had done when he was a little boy. I asked him about trips we had taken and things I had always wanted know about but hadn't had time to ask. I held his hand and memorized the way it looked and the way it felt so I would always have that memory with me. There were not many days I could remember having daddy all to myself.
I am my Daddy's child in the sense of always having something to do in the making.

I spent the whole day with my daddy, and about 6PM he insisted I go home and rest awhile and spend some time with my husband, (He adored Paul and was happy that I had finally found a good man who would love me like he loved mom-his words) and we would talk again tomorrow.
I hugged him and kissed his cheek and told him how much I loved him and then I went into the kitchen and kissed mom and told her the same and told her to call if they needed us.

I went home and ate dinner with Paul , telling him all about the wonderful day I had had with daddy and how good daddy looked and was feeling. A thought came to me that maybe it was the "bloom before the fade" as we call it in the south, but I brushed that thought away. I was not ready for my daddy to leave us.

And then at about 9PM the phone rang.
Paul answered it and handed it to me. It was my brother , Charlie,telling me that they had called the hospice nurse and she was on her way. I told him we would be right up.
Paul and I arrived as the hospice nurse was checking daddy's pulse and breathing. She went out of the room and told us it was a matter of hours, possibly less.
My other brother and my sisters had arrived by that time and the room began to get crowded with all the kids and grand kids and mom trying to be next to him in his last hours.

I was the only child who hung back. I went and kissed my daddy on the cheek and let him know I was there for him, and then I went and stood by the doorway. I did not want to see my daddy pass away. I didn't want to see the life fade from his eyes. I didn't want to see him draw his last breath. I wanted to remember him as the living, breathing, hero I had just spent the day with. But my daddy set store in the fact that his family was his world. And I was there for him. We all were.

Even as he drew his last breath he tried to comfort us. His last words were "It's so beautiful" as tho he could see a place just beyond our reach. I hope it was so.

But I did not want to be there when he left us.