Slice of Life Meme 'Good Byes'

Texasblu at Slice of Life has given us the topic of 'Good Byes' to write about.  I actually needed to write this down.

The hardest goodbye I ever made was in my heart in the dark of night in a hospital room. 

I was no stranger to good byes.  My  grandmother, father, father-in-law, and friends had passed from this life to a better one in the next life.  My husband and I along with my mother-in-law and his siblings, sat at my father-in-laws bedside and watched him pass from this life.   I had spent so many hours with him while he was ill, that he was a part of me too.

This was different.  This was my husband that I loved so dearly and we had been one so long that I never thought we would have to part for longer than a short time.  I had been at his side every moment while we went through his cancer treatments, fighting like a lion for his recovery.  This incidence he had had an overdose of morphine and ended up in ICU for draining his lungs and stabilizing his breathing.  While he was in the intermediate care, he was not back in this world a hundred percent.  I was sitting with him and he did not know me.  That was another fight to get them to change his medication; however, what happened during that time had a significant impact on me.  I was holding his hand, which he normally wanted, when all of a sudden he jerked his hand and said 'Let me go'.  I let his hand go, but could not quit reflecting on what he had said.  I knew he did not want to be kept on machines and sedated to mindlessness.  As I lay upon the couch that night listening to his breathing, I reflected upon what he had said.  Was he asking me to let his hand go? Was he asking Me to Let Him go?  I cried like I had never cried before.   I knew in my heart there was the cry in his heart to let him leave this life.  I silently told him good bye that I would get him home to die in peace. 

I accomplished that goal. He was able to come home on hospice.  He was able to tell his children and grandchildren he loved them.  I remember him looking up at me, as I was changing his tubing, and saying 'I love you' through his oxygen mask.
The morning he left us, my son was holding his hand and we were in the living room next to his bedside as he took his last breath. 
It was expected.  I handled it well, because I said good bye many weeks before in a different room. I knew he loved me and he knew I loved him.
I know I will see him again, and I am thankful that my heart heard his cry to prepare me for letting him go.