In the first hours after my Dad’s death our biggest concern was my Mom’s injuries.  It was hard to tell the extent of her injuries because of the bruising and swelling.  When we finally had a better picture of her injuries, around midnight on Monday, the emergency room doctor was all ready to release her to home.  All of us standing around Mom’s bed just looked at the physician in shock.  The idea of driving my mom two hour and half hours to her house in the middle of the night was too much to comprehend.  After some consultation the decision was made for Mom to spend the night in the orthopedic hospital.

As a family we decided to divide and conquer the road ahead of us to get Mom home.  My sister went to the lake house to retrieve the dog and the stuff my Mom needed, my brother was to drive my Mom home and I went early to get the house ready for her arrival.  My first steps into the house were surreal.  Under a table by my Dad’s chair sat his SAS shoes which he wore almost every day.  Those shoes were the tipping point for me in tears.  The tears that had been saved up from the previous day were not to be denied today.  There’s no handbook for this stuff.  We just make it up as we go along.  I left the shoes because I couldn’t bear to think of Dad not returning to those ugly, orthopedic shoes.  Fast forward a couple of hours later and the second thing my mother does is move the shoes into the bedroom.  She can’t stand to look at the shoes sitting in the living room and I can’t stand the idea that the owner of the shoes will not return.

See that’s the thing about death.  There’s no second chance or one more conversation.  Just nothing.  The End.  There is a reunion later but I am just trying to make it through the moments of right now.  I kept repeating to myself: “left foot, right foot, breath.”  But you see, even in my basic mantra, I am back to shoes.  All roads lead me the same place for right now.