From: Barbara J Garrison <BarbaraGarrison@juno.com>
To: Turk Family
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 07:45:12 -0600
Subject: Gone
Uncle Jim died this morning at 1:35 a.m. Sunday was quite the day. Chris Fairman had made UJ a CD of what Chris thought would be soothing music to listen to (and bought him a portable CD player.
I asked Mike to make a cassette of the CD so we could play it on my boom box in Jim's room.
I put the tape in and went downstairs. When Jennie and Sr. Natalie came they said he was singing when they came in. Sr. Natalie began to sing very loudly and took Jim's hand. She was singing Amazing Grace. Jim sang along with her. It sounded like those dogs that bark to Christmas Carols, but nonetheless it was amazing in itself. He then sang, sometimes in a very high soprano voice to the tape's music. It was as if he had found a way to communicate with us. I think he wanted to let us know he was not in pain, and also that he was on the threshold of another place.
We all gathered around his bed for the next few hours while he sang to us. We each said our goodbyes because we knew the end was near.
Not that near...... he continued on into the evening and late night.
At 12:30 I gave him his two medicines. He coughed. It was impossible for him to swallow. His lungs were filling rapidly.
At 1:35 Bob came into my room and said he thinks Jim is gone.
We called Hospice. They sent a nurse out to pronounce him dead.
At 3:00 the funeral directors came and took his body.
We threw out all the linens and pillows on the bed. It was 4:00 when we all went to bed ourselves. I turned on the radio next to my bed and there was someone on the station discussing what happens after we die. The person was talking about a higher form of intelligence that governs the universe. I found the timing of that, and my turning on the radio at that instant very odd and interesting. But I was too exhausted to be moved except toward sleep.
Now I am going into work.
Life goes on. Barbara