AGONY x 2

The sight of him on the bed below confirmed reality; he was gone.

He was amazed to see himself as others had. The hands on his body down there were gnarled and curled from disuse.

This was his seventh stroke in eight years, and it was the one that had done him in.

Previous aneurysms had been progressive, terrifying indications of what was to come. One after another, each occurrence presented unbearable frustration that slapped him hard and held him in its ruthless grasp as his motor functions decayed.

I was there when stroke #5 confined him to a wheelchair. Weeks later, at my house and unable to simply wheel himself across the living room floor from point A to point B, he burst into tears. The inability to work or to provide for his family had become real with the exploding of vessels in his brain. This horror slowly ate away at his soul.

Now, staring down, he saw me standing by his bed. Choking back tears, I thought of how much I missed the fishing trips, his wisdom, and how he always made time to listen to my problems.

"It's time to go," a powerful voice above my father said to him. "Your former self is washed away and the agony is no longer."

Ascending higher towards his next existence, my father looked down at his only son one last time.

"The agony isn't gone," he replied. "It just found a new home."

THE END

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