A Girl Named Patches...Part 13

Perhaps I should not have had Pa run around like that in his condition but something made me think he might have like it. A confirmation to himself he still had fire from within. For me, it was a different purpose. Simply that I could wear him out and even had he caught me the energy would have been lost to do anything bad to me. OK, and third, I did get a chuckle from watching him keep running while I was hiding under the table. There I said it!!

Well, the morning came that as my Ma was about to leave for work Pa called her over and handed him his wallet and said to her that he would no longer be needing it. Ma didn't think to far with this and took the wallet and went to work. But while there she got the intuition in her gut. This wasn't good. Was he trying to tell her more and she didn't give him the time. So, she returned home within a few hours and asked him how he was doing. Pa said, he felt it was time for him to go to the hospital. Ma was now driving as she had been preparing for the future several months back once they heard the news. But the car was small and Pa was in a bad way. He dropped from 230 pounds to now 100 and that does not look good for a man his height.

Ma called an ambulance as she was planning on following behind. But for Pa and the ride there she asked him who he wanted to ride in the ambulance with him. Shelli was down the road at her boyfriends and Heath, I am not sure where he was. But I was right there in the room and when the question was asked. We both looked at each other and then we both looked away. I was certain he would say Shelli just to twist that knife he had in my heart for all these years. A few minutes go by while he thinks about this question and then says..... Patches. Yes, I was stunned. In fact I am not sure I moved from that spot for a time.

Many things were running through my mind right now. Like my life on a tape rewinding and seeing and hearing and feeling everything he ever did to me. How many nights did I lay awake praying he would indeed die. How my heart ached that I just wanted him to love me, to acknowledge me, maybe not as his own per say but just as another humanoid. That would do. My whole life was running through me at record speed and I could only fathom what was happening to him.

The ambulance arrives and she followed us to the hospital. I guess she called Shelli and maybe left a note for Heath. But they were not there.

While in the ambulance the paramedic hooked him up on oxygen and was taking his vitals the whole way. As he did this I watched. Then something odd happened and something I did not expect. Pa extended his hand to me. He had a big farmer's work hand. It was still big compared to mine yet it was frail. I sat for a moment and we looked each other in the eyes and had a moment of silence like we were reading each others mind some how. No words were spoken. Then I took his offer and held his hand. I was so shaking, so anxious. Had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling here. I felt sad for sure...I felt broken from all the abuse...and yet I felt some sort of beginning. Not knowing what that meant yet.

As my mind was roaming and we are still holding hands and looking into each others eyes, after 13 years and what an adventure my Pa, squeezes my hand with a bit of pressure but in no way to hurt me, and his eyes looking over the oxygen mask to see mine he says, "I Love You !!!

I began to shake harder and tears came from the deepest part of me and I looked away, back to where my Ma was following us. Remember squeezing his hand harder and cried. I couldn't speak. The words I love you just couldn't come out, I was crying soooooooooo very hard, I couldn't even see my Ma now or anything else.

We finally made it to the hospital and the only reason for going was to keep him comfortable until the time. He spent one week in one hospital and was transferred to another for a few more weeks, but again, just for comfort. We visited every day my Ma and me. And one day he asked that all of us come the next day.

We (Ma and me) got Heath and Shelli to go with us on the day he requested and it was for him to say his final good-byes to all of us. He went down the line, telling them how he loved them and to be good and listen to their mother. And as it would be when he got to me, he looked and by now he was weighing 89 pounds. His eyes were sunk in his head. Literally he was skin and bone and I watched this disease eat a human alive.

But his last words to me were this: You will never amount to anything. You are good for NOTHING!!!