My Mom knew when she married Jim just a year and a half ago that he was in fragile health, and that they might not have long to enjoy one another’s company.
As she told me yesterday morning, though, she had at least thought they’d get their new car paid off first.
I don’t check Facebook daily, but I do check it fairly regularly, since that’s how my mother and my friends tend to communicate. For the past month or so, whenever I’d pop on, I’d see that Mom would have posted that Jim was back in the hospital for one thing or another: his heart, his kidneys, something else. I knew he was about to have a procedure done… so when I was driving my son to school and saw a call from my mom come up on my phone, I knew I couldn’t take the call right then.
I got hold of my Mom after I dropped Connor off at school, and she gave me the news. His heart had stopped during surgery. (Edit: I got that wrong. He made it through the actual surgery fine. He asked for a nitro in the middle of the night after the surgery, but by the time they arrived with it, he was in cardiac arrest.) His pacemaker kicked in right on cue… but he was already gone.
I honestly didn’t get to know Jim as well as I might have liked. Seemed that every time he and Mom came to visit, he was without a working hearing aid, so conversation was difficult. 🙂 I did get to hear a few tidbits of his fascinating life, though, mostly revolving around his time in the Air Force, when he was stationed in Japan.
Jim loved his family — he couldn’t stop talking about how proud he was of each of his kids. He also made sure to count me and mine as part of his family as much as he could. Shortly after I met him, he found out that I collect film cameras, and he gave me a vintage Polaroid Land Camera from his Epic Stash of eBay Fodder. While a Land Camera wasn’t at the top of my must-have list, it did make me feel all warm and fuzzy that he’d taken note of my interests. He also gave my son several great gifts for Christmas and birthdays: a toy train for under the Christmas tree, a fire truck (“Every boy needs a fire truck.”), and the Black Lion from Voltron, among other things. (That black lion is my son’s very favorite thing right now, and I never did get around to letting Jim know that.)
When Mom and Jim moved to Florida, I was upset — but only briefly. I knew that Jim’s kids who lived down there had been waiting for him to move back for years. I know how that feels, and I’d been lucky enough to have my Mom relatively close by again for several years, so I wasn’t going to begrudge them having their Dad nearby (or begrudge my Mom her retirement someplace sunny and warm). I’m so glad Jim’s kids got some more quality time with him.
Jim was a good guy, and he was good to my Mom. I just wish they’d had more time together.
Thanks for the kind words, only one correction, and in my state I may have told you wrong, he had come out of surgery the evening of the 9th at 1:30 the morning of the 10th he asked for a nitro and was in full cardiac arrest by the time they come back with it.
He had a great life for a poor farm boy from Ohio.