The Final Goodbye
By
Warning: Death of a character
Author's note: I went to the funeral of a good friend today, came home
and this is what came to me. This is in memory of him. Rest in peace Bob, we'll
miss you.
EMERGENCY! Characters belong to MARK VII LIMITED, but any and all OC's (Original
Characters) belong to me and can not be used without my permission.
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A brain tumor...an inoperable, malignant brain tumor...and we were first told it
might have been only a slight stroke, at least, that's what the symptoms were
saying.
After we found out what it actually was, he was given only 6 weeks if he didn't
have treatment which he decided against since he kept sayin' that he wouldn't
get any better from goin' through it. He said that he wanted to spend whatever
time he had left bein' able to do what he wanted to do and enjoy life instead of
bein' sick all the time. None of us liked it, we wanted to keep him around
longer, but we understood how he felt and we all respected his wishes.
Then Thursday, the day his wife and daughter had brought him back home from just
a routine Doctor's visit. I'll never forget it, him sittin' in his wheelchair in
the front yard, smilin' and talkin' with all of us men, a bunch of firefighters,
who had gotten together and had been buildin' him a deck with a ramp to make it
easier for him to get around the house .we were puttin' the finishing touched on
it that day and he kept goin' on, commentin' about how he really liked it and
what a good job we had done on it at least, for a few days, he got a little bit
of enjoyment out of it.
But it was only two hours later that he got an excruciating, pounding headache
that wouldn't go away and then his wife was callin' for a rescue squad to take
him to the hospital. He had started to lose consciousness and was becoming
unresponsive by the time the squad and ambulance arrived he was totally
unconscious and not responding at all.
They admitted him to Rampart and after running some tests, they said that he was
bleeding into his brain we were told that *if* he lived through the night, that
they would be sending him home the next morning with hospice there was nothin'
more that could be done for him.
We all received phone calls the next morning around 7am.Doctor Early had passed
away, peacefully, around 9pm the night before with his family around him. Dixie
seems to be doin' alright, but you can tell that she's in a daze here, we were
all expectin' it to be at least six weeks, which would'a been hard enough to
cope with, and it turned out to be only a few days.she can't believe that the
man she loved so much has been taken away and so suddenly none of us can believe
it. Nick, Becky and Aaron are all there, trying to help her cope as well as
tryin' to cope with it the best that they can themselves but it's hard on all of
us.
We gathered today to say our final good-byes to our friend the chapel at the
funeral home was packed with co-workers, friends and family. Doctor Brackett
gave the eulogy and Roy, Cap, Mike, Marco, Chet and myself served as
pallbearers. I hate havin' to do that, but I agreed to it 'cause Doc was my
friend and it was out of respect for him, Dixie and the family. We miss him so
much but we're all glad that he didn't have to suffer.
Rest in peace Doc we'll never forget you.
THE END