James Monroe Howell

Last month, my Papa, who played guitar every Saturday night in a band, who kept a beautiful garden around his koi pond in his back yard, who went on cruises and dates with younger women (she's in her 60's? you dog!) wasn't feeling well and drove himself to the hospital a few towns away.



He was told that night that he wasn't aloud to leave the hospital until he was placed in hospice care and he had 3 to 6 months to live.



He didn't care.



Living like a vegetable, doped up on morphine, not being able to get out of bed to use the bathroom - he told me several times in his mumbly incoherence that he wished he never gotten in his car that day last month.



Last night he died.

I'll miss you, but I sure am glad knowing that you're not suffering anymore.




Although, I'm pretty disappointed you didn't make good on your deal.

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong

Several years ago my mema died after a long struggle with emphysema. My papa had cared for her dearly during those very hard last years. When she died it was too hard for him to be in the house that reminded him so much of her pain, so he built himself a much smaller version of the house they lived in just a few lots down on the same street.
Now my papa is in his final moments and has been moved from his house into a nursing home. My parents were in Georgia this past week caring for him when my mom decided to go over to his house and try to find some things that belonged to my mema that I might be able to wear in the wedding.
As she started opening each drawer in my papas bedroom, hoping to find her mother-in-laws things stashed somewhere amongst his she realized that half of the dresser, the closet, the clothing bureau's, were still dedicated to my mema. Her clothes folded up neatly inside.
"If she came back", my mother said "it would be as if she never left. She wouldn't have to look for a thing".

My mom sat on the floor of my papa's bedroom and cried like a little baby for thirty minutes before she finally opened the bottom drawer and found a box with three pair of her fanciest gloves from her youth and a rhinestone choker that matches my dress perfectly.