Last Hug

As there is always a first, there is also a last.  A last day at school, a last paycheck, a last spring, even the last light from our sun.  For each of us, there will be a last hug with those we love.  It may have already happened. 

A few years ago, I watched my parents walk to their car after spending Father’s Day weekend together at my house.  My dad stopped, turned, and waved goodbye to me.  In that moment, I felt so strongly that I was saying goodbye to him, that I would never see him again.  Though we had just hugged moments before, I was tempted to run out and hug him one more time.  One last real hug.  But I didn’t.  A few months later, Mom called.  Dad was in the hospital.  There was a mass on his brain and, though they were not sure what it was yet, it was huge.   

I tried to stay positive.  Maybe it was a mistake.  Maybe it was benign.  But is wasn’t.  It was cancer. 

Several years earlier, Dad survived and recovered from a heart attack.  His diabetes was (mostly) under control.  He survived a previous bout with cancer, that one in his sinus cavity.  He was getting better, we thought.  He would get stronger; he would be okay.  Then he started to get confused. 

I noticed it that Father’s Day weekend.  I offered to split a very large, fresh picked peach with him.  “I don’t know,” he said.  His answer and confused tone puzzled me.  He ate half and enjoyed it, but I was disturbed.  Why did he not know?  Mom had noticed this sort of behavior, too.  The radiation that shrank his first tumor focused very close to his brain.  His doctors insisted that his brain would not be affected, but how could it not be?  Could this be an effect of his treatment?  Within a few weeks, his balance was off and he started falling.  After a bad fall, they went to his doctor.  That’s when I got the phone call. 

If the doctors told Mom what his chances of survival were, she never told me, maybe they never said.  Maybe she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to face the possibility of a last breath, last goodbye, last “I love you.”  She and I kept expecting him to get better.  Once the radiation was over.  Once he came home.  Once he was stronger.  But he didn’t ever get stronger, though he did come home at long last. 

In the months from diagnosis to the last day, the saddest day, there were many hugs, many exchanges of “I love you.”  They were sick bed hugs, never standing.  I longed for a real hug – to wrap my arms around him and feel his around me.  Between exhaustion from radiation and damage done by tumor, biopsy, and radiation, he never hugged back anymore.  We didn’t talk about it.  I just thought, when he gets better… 

He was finally home when we had our last hug.  Radiation shrank his tumor but took a toll too great for his body to pay.  Too great for a second round so soon after his first.  Too close to where the last round focused.  Just too much.  Hospice cared for him now.  Mom still clung to hope, maybe, maybe, maybe. 

I hugged him as he lay in his hospital bed, unable now to even open his eyes.  I felt him breathe in in a way I recognized, a sudden inhale of surprise, a response to my love.  He tried, even as weak as he was, to kiss the top of my head.  “I love you,” I said for what may have been the hundredth time just in that visit.  I didn’t know it would be our last hug. 

Mom called a week later.  Dad’s hospice nurse did not think he had much time left, maybe just a week.  The next morning, she called again.  He was gone. 

This past Sunday was Father’s Day, four years after our last real hug.  I sometimes wish I had run out for one more, just one more hug.  Despite that regret, I was blessed with the time to say and express to him what was in my heart.  Since his heart attack years ago, I lived with knowing that one day he would be gone.  I told him and demonstrated love to him in as many ways as I could.  I remember missing one more hug, but there other things I didn’t miss. 

I remember his fierce, tight hug as he held back tears after reading a poem I wrote for him describing how I knew he loved me.  I remember leaning into his side during quiet hugs in the kitchen as Mom cooked dinner.  I remember his smile and his laugh.  I remember his voice calling me “Sport” or “Ace” which both really meant “I love you.”  I’m grateful for these memories.  I am grateful I could savor moments with Dad while he was still here. 

As much as we try to deny it, there will be a last for each of us; a last with loved ones, a last cup of coffee, a last breath.  We don’t know when that may come.  We can bury our heads in the sand to this, we can fear the end, or we can accept each visit, each cup of coffee, each breath as the gift that it is.  We can savor this moment, this now that may be all have.  And then enjoy the next, and the next. 

If that dreaded phone call came today, what would you regret?  What would you wish you had said or done?  We can say the things we always “meant to.”  We can ensure that our loved ones really know we love them.  But only if we act.  

Now.