Death at the Doorstep

Death at the Doorstep

Knowing your days are numbered clarifies what’s really important to you. Perhaps I should say who’s really important.  A serious accident or confirmation of a terminal illness rarely leaves one with the opportunity to appeal the altered timeline. All you have left to decide is how you will live your final days or months if you are a little bit lucky. Equally life changing is when you learn that someone close to you has learned that death is on the doorstep. Such a circumstance knocks Frank down in my novel, Baggage burdens. He learns cancer has cut his wife’s life short. 

Frank has consistently denied he was addicted to alcohol and smoking even after his wife, Alice, moves out of their house. Her love for Frank leads her to keep phone contact with him, but his drinking and smoking behavior remains unchanged. Once he learns that cancer has put Alice in the hospital he recognizes what is really important. He changes in ways that surprises people like Josey, his mother-in-law.

“Then Alice became ill,” says Josey. “There were tests and tests and tests. Eventually, we learned she had lung cancer. When she was hospitalized, Frank spent every minute that he wasn’t at work with her. Near the end, he took a long-term leave and stayed with Alice day and night. What surprised me is he quit drinking. Quit smoking too. Completely. No stepping out for a drag and then returning. One of the times that I convinced Frank to go downstairs and get something to eat, Alice explained his changed behavior. She said Frank was praying for her recovery. He promised God that if she recovered, he would never touch another cigarette or drink again.”

Guessing what Jill was about to say, Josey says, “Yes, yes, I know. That wouldn’t turn things around. Alice said she thought it was his way of saying that he would do anything to help her. ‘He really does love me,’ your mom said. I let my bias about his drinking blind me to the possibility that he was capable of any love. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

He loved her! Mom loved him. Impossible, thinks Jill. 

“When I first saw him adopt his abstinence role, I thought he was trying to punish himself.”

“Punish himself! For what?” Jill leans forward, eager for an explanation.

“His smoking. I thought he blamed himself for Alice getting lung cancer because he smoked. Maybe that’s the case. I don’t know, but I suspected that was his motivation.”

“But you don’t think so any longer?”

“The time I saw him at the hospital, he seemed to be a completely changed man. He was considerate, caring. No hint of anger. It’s almost like he reverted to the time when he was courting her. Maybe he realized he was about to lose the most important thing in his life. I honestly think if he could have traded places with her, he would have.”

In response to Jill’s look of surprise, Josey says, “Yes. Me too. I found it hard to believe. I guess you had to be there to see it.”

Jill shakes her head in disbelief. This is not the man I knew. Maybe Josey was not in a clear emotional frame of mind to assess Father accurately.

“I don’t blame you for not believing me,” says Josey. “Maybe you’ll believe Kathy. Her opinion of him changed too.”

haiku capsule:                                                                                      

prognosis––death soon

our days together––numbered

I love you the most

Next blog: A Reader’s Challenge

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