I used this in hospice training in the late 1970s. It is the profound universal message of our common human need for witness to our lives and to our deaths. It is the same message that Jesus gave when shortly before he was tortured to death, he said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death; remain here, and watch with me.”
SHE CALLED JUST TO SAY GOODBYE
By Lynna Williams
Star-Telegram Writer
In a long and good life, she married the man she loved and together they loved two sons. Now she is dying and who will hear her goodbyes?
Not her husband or her sons. The oldest son died in the France of World War Il two days after his last letter arrived safely home. The youngest was buried next to his father in a Fort Worth cemetery.
Not other family. She came to her marriage from life as the adored only child in a West Texas home. Mama and Daddy died within a year of each other 48 years ago.
Not friends. Those who meant something to her are dead, their obituaries neatly clipped and filed in a front room desk.
But, although she is alone, she wanted to say goodbye. She wanted even more for someone to hear. The voice that called the Star-Telegram newsroom Tuesday was somewhat hesitant but firm about the purpose for the call: She had something to say. Could someone listen?
Assured that someone could, she began to talk. Her name wasn’t important, she said. Her need for a witness to her life — even a stranger — was.
She was born in Abilene 81 years ago. Nothing has ever come between her and memories of the house where she grew up, not distance and certainly not time. She can remember it now as clearly as if she stood on the freshly painted porch. She can see the oak tree where she played and where folks gathered on Sundays for prayer meeting.
Her husband-to-be was a boy of 16 when they met at a girlfriend’s house. She remembers betting with the friend — a daring act for a gently brought up girl — that he would marry her.
He was over 6 feet tall and when she looked at him, something caught in her heart. She remembers that feeling, too, so clearly that retelling it makes her sound, for a moment, almost young again.
They married and moved to Fort Worth. She hated the town on sight — her husband laughed at her for missing the West Texas “scenery” of Abilene — but she wrote her parents every day and she survived.
Two years after she became a wife, she became a mother. First, Bill, who “never met a stranger.” Then, Hal, a boy who became his beloved older brother’s shadow.
The voice on the phone stops. Is the taking up too much time? She almost laughs at that and makes a joke about being short of time. The voice is stronger, as if memories give her strength.
They were a family. Her boys had their own front porch to grow on. There were picnics and conferences at school with their teachers. Bill was the class cut-up. Hal was too shy but was the best of boys.
Hard times came. Her husband’s first small business failed. But the family was together and they survived. Where did the time go? She wonders that now, but cannot remember if she noticed the days slipping away then.
Bill was dead. Thirty years have passed but she remembers that day as if it were filed with the other obituaries in the front room. She cried. Her husband cried. Hal shut himself in the boys’ bedroom. When he came out, he was changed in a way that made her heart ache. He never spoke of his brother again.
She got through the days when Hal was overseas by praying he would come home again.
When he did, their life went on. He stayed at home after his return and helped his father with the family business.
Hal was at his father’s side when he died in 1967. She had left the hospital room for a minute and the way she felt seeing her only child bent over her husband is a memory, too.
Her son died four years ago. He was never anything but her best boy. When she thinks of her husband, she sees his face. With Hal, it is his smile. Bill has become the picture on the mantle, the eyes under the Army visor.
She has lived her life since then alone in the house with the front porch where no one plays now.
She became more and more alone as the years went by. Fewer faces at church were familiar. She was an old woman and who would take the time to get to know her?
Her heath, always good, began failing last year. She sold the family home in January and moved into a nursing home.
Last month, she was hospitalized for a list of ailments she is sure will mean her death.
She has thought about it — about dying — many times. She believes she will see her family again and will not be sorry when her life as it is now is over.
But — and her voice became firmer still — she did want someone to know she was alive and soon would not be.
She just wanted someone to know.
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
(UPS 206-260)