Every Sunday night at approximately 7:30 in the evening, my father would always call me. The call would basically be just to check up on me and touch base. We asked each other how we felt, I was divorced, and my children were young, so he wanted to know if I was seeing my kids. The call lasted about five minutes, but it was good to know that every Sunday his call would come, and I looked forward to talking to him. Occasionally, I would take the kids when I had them, with my second wife Carla, and go to Brooklyn to visit my parents. We lived in New Jersey. Even though we didn’t live far away, Carla wasn’t from the city, and she was afraid to be in Brooklyn. So we never went too often.
In the winter my parents went to Florida for a couple of months to get away from the cold. They rented efficiency at the Deauville in Miami Beach. One night, I got a call from my brother Joseph. It was about two in the morning, so I knew it wasn’t good news. My mother was in the hospital with her third bout of congestive heart failure, and wasn’t expected to make it through the night. My brother and I flew down to Miami. Mom was still alive, and three days later I flew back home and my mom left the hospital. They both stayed in a nursing home, because my mom was way too weak to fly back to New York.
Three weeks later, my mom passed away. The funeral was held in Long Island, where there was a family plot. My dad essentially was in a state of shock, and my mom’s death didn’t really hit him till about a couple of months later. When reality set in for him, he just became severely depressed. He didn’t take his medication, ate all kinds of food he wasn’t supposed to eat, and just wanted to be with my mom. My brother wanted him to live in a senior community near us in New Jersey, but he wouldn’t go. He did go to Florida, and shared a house rental with my aunt for two months, but he couldn’t enjoy himself. He just wanted to go back to Brooklyn.
One Sunday night my dad called at his normal time. He sounded weak and his voice had a very deep sadness to it. He said he had a cold from the trip home to New York from Florida. When I got off the phone I looked at Carla, and she saw the look in my face. I said to her,” I think something is going to happen to my dad and the way he said goodbye made me feel it was for the last time” Just from my look, she knew it also. That Wednesday, I got a call at work that my dad died at home.
Just one year after my mother passed, my father got his wish. He was buried beside my mother. I understood that when two people are very close it is very common for both of them to pass away so close together in time. Unfortunately for my children, they were too young at the time, so they didn’t get to know them as much as they would have liked. Sometimes, even though this happened in 1988, I remember it as if it was just yesterday.
The Sunday night after my dad died, at around 7:30, the phone rang. I just stared at the phone in disbelief. Carla was there in the kitchen and she looked the same way. When I picked up the phone there was a lot of heavy static. The phone sounded like an old radio trying to pick up signals from far away. In a weak distant voice I heard my dad say, “Jimmy I love you, I am okay don’t worry, goodbye.” Carla didn’t have to ask. She knew it was my dad, just as I did. For a while I was standing frozen and trying to fathom what I had just heard. That was my dad’s last call, but it made me feel good, because I know now that there is something waiting for us after we die. Because of that call, I am less afraid to die than I was. I hope it helps you the reader as well. God Bless.
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