Grams and I were sitting in pops hospital room waiting for the nurse to bring pop back from his latest round of tests. We were both fighting off tears trying to stay strong for each other.
An hour past and the Dr came into the room and crouched down in front of us and said I am so sorry, it's pancreatic cancer and there isn't anything we can do, it's progressed too far. I will be back later to speak with you more.
Grams and I broke down in that moment wrapped in each other's arms sobbing. When the nurse brought pop back to the room he was still very groggy, we both crawled in bed with him, holding him, crying.
The cancer didn't phase pop one bit, he had such a strong faith in Christ, and accepted this was the plan for his life. It wasn't so easy for grams and I. We both struggled daily with the thought of pop not being there. I would find myself waking up in the night and going to his room to check on him. The doctors gave him a month and three had passed, pop was a strong man and even though he had accepted it, he wasn't going to just stop living. He still woke up every morning and got dressed, fixed his hair and went about his day as usual.
Once school started, Pop got up Every morning to help me get ready for school and drove me till he couldn't drive anymore. As the days went on he became more and more frail and able to do less and less, it seemed like it happened over night. When he had to start sleeping in a hospital bed because he was too uncomfortable in a regular bed we knew it was getting close, no matter how much we tried to prepare we just were not ready to lose pop, I don't think we ever would be.
Thursday morning pop woke me up like he always did "Starr baby it's time to get up".....Starr baby, that's what he always called me from the time I was brand new and here I am 14 years old and he's still calling me Starr baby. I sat up in bed and gave him a hug like I always did, he walked back to his room to lay back down and I heard a crash. Grams and I ran to the bedroom and found pop on the floor, he had lost conciseness and fell into the door and then the floor. I ran to call Lee and then 911. Lee ran in the door and to pop just as he was taking his last breath. I was on the phone with 911 when I heard grams whale out in sheer heart ach "NO BILL NO DONT LEAVE ME" the sound of her voice in that moment will always ring in my ears. I dropped the phone and ran to pop to see his lifeless body laying on the ground. I don't remember doing this but grams told me I threw myself on him and held on to him screaming daddy don't go I need you. Lee picked me up and sat me on the bed, the paramedics came and took him away.
My daddy, the man who loved me unconditionally and gave up more than he ever should have had to and did it willingly passed away at 6:45am Thursday September 12th 1996.
Grams and I planned his funeral, we made sure every last detail no matter how small was perfect, this man deserved it, he deserved everything. The pastor of our church presided over the service and did a beautiful job, everyone who was there got up to speak about pop and said such beautiful things about him, and I......I sang amazing grace, a song I sang to pop many many times before, a song that he asked me to sing to him when he was feeling his worst, he said it always made him feel better. This would be the last time I would be able to sing it for him and I put my entire heart and soul into it.
After the funeral grams had a hard time living, she didn't know how to be with out this man who had not only been her husband since she was 13, but a man she loved more than her own life. I am fully convinced had it not been for the fact she had me to care for she would have gone shortly after pop.
After a few months things started to become normal, but it just wasn't the same without pop, the home was.....different, there was a sullen cloud hanging over us that neither one of us could shake, that we didn't want to shake. We wanted and needed to be sad.
The first Christmas without pop was hard, none of us got through the day without crying, but Troy had a surprise, he had been working very hard with his speech therapist and before Christmas dinner Troy said a very short but absolutely breathtaking grace that consisted of just a few words, but they were incredible words coming from him, words we never thought we would hear from his voice again. Not even Lee knew he had been working on it. It brought a brightness to our family, a hope, something we hadn't had in a very long while.
Maybe things were going to go smooth now, maybe things were looking up........maybe
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