None of us know when something is going to happen which will change our lives forever. Take our friends Mike and Holly. Saturday everything was fine. They were so happy and excited over their pregnancy. Although the financial future looked a little scary, they were hopeful. Married for two years, they had found real love at last. This totally included Holly's teen son who strongly bonded with his step-dad. It would work out somehow. That was Saturday.
Sometime after midnight Mike got up feeling really bad. Holly went to make him some tea and heard the fall. Mike had a heart attack. 911! CPR! EMTs! Rush to the hospital! All to no avail. He was gone. All the light and laughter and Latino virility that was Miquel evaporated, gone to be with Jesus. And Holly and David were left with phone calls asking about organ donation. It was so unreal. It was really too drastic and too startling to be true, right? Some mistake. Some dream.
But no, as the day wore on friends came to sit with them. The organ donation people called again. Decisions had to be made about the body. The body. Yesterday that very same body had seemed the essence of Mike. Now it was only the body, lying in the hospital morgue waiting for some word that various parts could be harvested.
Mike had wanted that. They had talked about it; he had checked it on his driver's license. It was his wish, so it had to be done. And yet how could Holly release those eyes that had looked at her with so much love. His heart valves, bones, skin. It was too terrible to think about and yet it was his wish.
After the long slow day there followed a trip to the hospital where only Holly's tears and the official's compassion allowed her and David, after much delay, to finally be able to see that beloved body again to say goodbye. It wasn't easy.
Now there are so many more decisions for wife and son to make. Which funeral home? What will the veteran's benefits cover? Cremation or not? How will they ever pay for all of this? How will they live? How can they raise this little unborn child, Mike's child who will be born fatherless?
This has been my last two sobering days.
