Copyright Muse Enterprises, 1999
The following is a former winner of the Amazing but Incredibly True Story Contest.
In July of 1990, my father was fighting his final battle with cancer. He requested to die at home in his own bed, so my mother, my three older brothers and myself took turns sitting at his bedside around the clock. For several days before his death, my father's eyes never closed or blinked. He lay with his gaze fixed on the small lamp on the bedside table. One day I turned the lamp off, not realizing that it had become a focal point for my father to distance himself from the incredible pain he was experiencing. Seconds after I turned the light switch off, my father began to thrash and moan.
Quickly realizing what I had done, I turned the light back on and Dad settled back into his hypnotic gaze toward the lamp. The night my father died, I was "on duty." When I realized that his death was imminent, I touched him gently and said "Wait Dad, don't go yet, I have to go get Mom so she can say goodbye to you." I ran to the room down the hall where my mother was asleep for the first time in days. I said "Mom its time, Dad is waiting for you." As my mother sat down next to my father and gently held his hand, she said "Its ok, you can go now." My father sighed deeply and passed quietly into the hands of God.
In the commotion immediately following my father's death, my sister-in-law reached over and snapped off the light on the bedside stand. I instantly reacted by jumping up and yelling, "Don't shut that light off, Dad needs it!" I reached under the shade and turned the switch back on before I had even realized what I had done. The room fell silent as the eyes of my three older brothers and my mother stared sadly at me. I began to cry, "Please leave the light on for Dad, he needs the light." Seconds later, as we stood in silence together in that room with my father's body still on the bed, the light clicked off all by itself. We stared at one another in disbelief. I tried to turn the light back on to no avail. It would not turn on again. Finally, my brother spoke. "I think Dad is telling you that he doesn't need the light anymore. He is with God and there is no more suffering."
To this very day, I sleep in the room where my father died. I have never felt uncomfortable there because I only feel his love and the reassuring message that he passed on to me from the other side.
To contact the author, write to Judy Smith.
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