Never Alone

The day before my father died was a Sunday. It was January 12th, 2003.

I had gone to church as usual in Berkeley, California, where Jeremy and I lived. That morning my father lay unconscious in a hospital room in Boise, Idaho, having never awakened from the emergency surgery performed late the previous Friday night.

I knew he was in the hospital. I'd received several phone message from my sister Lola and my mother throughout the day on Saturday telling me of his condition. I'd tried to call them back, but hadn't reached them. So I knew what they'd relayed in their voice messages.

And even with that information, I didn't get it.

So when I arrived from from church and found two messages not from my mother or sister but from Wendy, a close family friend, I was very surprised at the urgency in her voice. The insistent, "Ok, Ann, you gotta call. We need to talk to you."

I called and spoke to my mother. She had been told by my father's doctor's that she should gather her children around their father. I needed to go home.

I had just been there a couple of weeks before. Jeremy and I had celebrated Christmas there with my siblings. We had purchased a pair of thermal long underwear for my father as his gift. It was what he'd requested. We had watched him prance through our gathering in the living room wearing nothing but those tight thermals. He made everyone giggle.

Now he was in intensive care. Reality began to sink in. I was afraid. 

For reasons I can no longer recall, probably financial, I decided to make the return trip alone. I made flight arrangements and packed in between bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. Jeremy drove me to the airport in Oakland and was forced to drop me off to wait for my flight alone.

I was in no emotional state to be left alone, but what could he do? Or what could I do?

I found a seat in the waiting area by my flight's gate. I immediately saw a man named Taylor Jackson. He was my home teacher. 

As much as I didn't want to see anyone I knew--puffy red eyes and all--I knew I would have to talk to him. It turns out he was heading on a solo skiing trip to Utah, where my trip had a layover. His wife was not happy to be left home with their children while he pursued a pleasure trip, but here he was. "I don't really know why I'm going at all," he said.

He asked about the reasons for my trip, and I explained. I didn't want to. I didn't want to cry in front of him. But he listened surprisingly well and shared his own experience with the passing of his mother from cancer, careful to express his hope that this probably was not going to be the passing of my father. He could relate to the fear and grief I felt.

We boarded our flight to Salt Lake. We didn't sit by each other or speak again until I was getting off the plane and he said good bye.

When I found the appropriate gate in the Salt Lake airport, I sat alone amid hundreds of travelers. After a few minutes, as I looked down the terminal, I saw two people walking toward me. In spite of myself, I nearly laughed out load. It was Connie and Layne Hadlock. For years, it was the family joke that whenever my dad said, "Guess who I saw at the ___________?" someone would respond with "Layne Hadlock." This because it was so frequently a correct guess. And Layne Hadlock had most frequently appeared at the same time as my dad in airports. Imagine seeing them here now? It felt as if it had been orchestrated just to cheer me up.

The couple had been friends with my parents for many years: their children were close in age to many of my siblings, and Connie had taught violin lessons to me and my sister years earlier. They were good people who knew my family well and cared about us. I explained about my dad's illness, the seriousness of his condition, as I understood it. They were sad to hear about my dad's condition, but they kept conversation going to cheer me and keep my mind occupied.

Their presence there at the airport--and Taylor Jackson's--was a gift. Oh sure, they had legitimate reasons for being there of their own. But I needed them, and there they were.

It was a hard day for me. The night was even harder. And many more hard days followed. But on this and other days I had a very clear knowledge that I was not alone. Never alone.