There are beginnings and there are endings.
I was home alone with our 6-month-old, Leo. It was a dark January night, cold and wet, the kind of night that calls for a hot drink and a good book. But Leo wasn’t having any of that, so I paced the house with him, singing made-up songs and bouncing to intermittent rhythms.
A knock at the door. I hadn’t been expecting anyone, so I peeked through the blinds. It was my dad, bundled up in a coat and scarf. Steam clouded from his mouth as he waved to Leo thorugh the glass.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, but at first he didn’t answer, just snatched Leo from me and headed into the living room. He put Leo on the floor and played with him for a little, then answered my question.
“I was walking back from the hospital,” he said with a sad kind of disgust in his voice. “The cancer’s spread. She’s on morphine now, and hospice will be with her in the next day or two.”
A friend we used to go to church with was coming to the end of her life. She was in her early 40s, a wife, and a mother of two. My dad and I didn’t say anything else, just stared at little Leo as he laughed and made his first halting efforts at crawling.
Abruptly my dad stood up, gave me a hug, and walked back out onto the cold streets.
To read the rest of this, my last post for Deeper Story, click HERE.