When my dad was failing and we knew the end was near, he was
still hanging on
and everyone decided that I would go home and sleep for a few
hours (I had
been up for the past 48 hours). I went home and slept about 2
hours and woke
feeling very refreshed. I decided to load up my 3 kids and go
back to Dallas
to see how Dad was doing. When I got there, my mom and my husband
were the
only ones there. They were both sleeping in the waiting room down
at the end
of the hall. I went in to see Dad and sat down and started
talking to him.
Of course, he was comatose, but I talked anyway. While I was
talking and
holding his hand, one of his eyes opened. He seemed to be
watching me, but
other than that, there was no evidence that he was conscious. I
told him many
things including the fact that I loved him and while I didn't
want to let him
go, I knew that he wouldn't want to exist as a vegetable. I told
him that it
was OK to go on. His parents and sister would be waiting for him.
I told him
to go deer hunting when he got there. (We had always joked about
how much my
mother hated it when he went deer hunting and would leave her
alone with the
four kids.) I told him to have fun and hunt as often as he
wanted. I talked
about other things and about 15 minutes later, he passed away. I
went down
the hall to break the news to Mom and when I entered the room,
she and my
husband woke up at the exact same time. She said, "He's
gone, isn't he?" And
I said, "Yes, but he's OK now." About half an hour
later, we were talking
with the chaplain and she looked up at me and said, "What
did you say to him
about deer hunting?" I was so shocked I didn't know what to
say. She asked
me the same question again. I said, "Why in the world would
you ask me that?"
She replied, "I don't know. It just came to me." There
was absolutely no way
she could have heard me tell Dad to go hunting. She was asleep at
least 10
hospital rooms away. I started laughing through my tears because
I knew it
was Dad's way of telling me that he had heard me and he was OK
now. By the
time we discussed it, he had probably already bagged his first 12
pointer!
Two days after my dad's funeral, my brother and mother were
talking about Dad
and his job with the government during the war. (To this day, we
wonder if he
could have been exposed to something during this time that caused
him to
contract CJD). My mom mentioned that I had given Dad a handbook
from the
Experiment Station (the book was printed in 1945 while they
worked there -- I
found it at an antique store), but she had no idea what he had
done with it.
My brother walked into the entry hall and opened the closet door
and the book
was lying on the first shelf. My mother had just been in the
closet the day
before and she swears it wasn't there. She had cleaned out the
closet and the
shelf had been empty.
The same brother also took a watch that my dad had worn up until
the day Dad
entered the hospital. Mom had taken it home about 14 days before
he died. My
brother called me that night and in a very shaky voice, asked me
to guess what
day the calendar part of the watch had stopped on. It was May
18th, the day
Dad died. It wouldn't budge off of that date. I think to this
day, the watch
calendar still says May 18.
I have had several dreams about Dad in which he tells me he is
OK. In my
dreams, he is about 35 years old (he was nearly 40 when I was
born). I don't
necessarily believe in loved ones coming to you in dreams;
however, the last
dream I had disturbed me so much I had to mention it to my
mother. In this
dream, Dad is sick, but able to communicate. He seems sad and
worried. I ask
him how he contracted CJD. He hesitated and then said that
"Mrs. McCormick
cooked for me and fed me squirrel." I casually asked Mom a
few days later if
she knew of anyone in their past named Mrs. McCormick. She said
that the
McCormicks were at the Experiment Station when they worked there
during the
early 1940s. I asked her if there was ever a possibility that
Mrs. McCormick
cooked for Dad. She said that Mrs. McCormick cooked for Dad all
the time!
Mom was working in the office and Dad was out in the field and
Mrs. McCormick
would bring lunch to her husband and Dad. Mom nearly fainted when
I told her
the story. There was no possible way I could have known the
couple's name.
They had left and another couple, the Dunkles, became my dad's
boss. They were
the ones that Dad always talked about when he would tell us
stories.
Beverly G.