As I was reading it, I recalled that this sounded familar. My dad, too, had that feeling shortly after my grandpa had a heart attack. The original article is at the end of the post but I also included my dad's comments that he left to the author. My dad is an amazing writer and evokes so much emotion. I asked him if I could repost this on my blog.
I have heard of others who just had a feeling that they needed to be with someone shortly before they die. I know my aunts experienced something very similar right before my grandma (their mom) died. I think sometimes we ask for proof that God exisits, that he give us signs. There is no denying that he is present with us during our most difficult times and sometimes taps on our shoulders to say "Go. Stop what you are doing and just go". And what's the downside? Overreacting? That just means that you were able to spend a few extra, unexpected hours with a loved one. We should all use this as an example to sometimes put down our daily routines and just savor those moments we have with those we love.
From John LaRose of DeWitt:
"I had a great deal of difficulty, but also comfort, while reading your (June 19) column about the unspoken command related to the day before your dad died.
"In July 1997 my father suffered his second heart attack, and my older sister was with him and my mom in Arizona while he was recovering at home. I knew he was in good hands but I kept having this weird unsettling feeling that I needed to be there. I told my wife about it and she, like yours, said, 'Listen to your heart; go.' I went to the airport and left that day.The original article:
"My dad seemed fine ... and I could not help but wonder if I was overreacting ... Around 4 p.m. the very next day, my dad went to bed to take a nap and when he didn't come out of the bedroom after a few hours, I went in and found that he had died in his sleep.
"As difficult a situation as it was, I will forever cherish that fact that I was with him at the end, and that I was there, along with my sister, to help comfort my mother and support her ...
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, for giving me the best gift I could have received - a tearful but fond and cherished remembrance of my dad."
John Schneider (Lansing State Journal)
Unspoken command was well-worth heeding
Jun 19, 2011
Nineteen years ago, almost to this day, I was at my desk, just after lunch, struggling to concentrate on the written word, while a different sort of communication kept clutching at my lapels. I felt a powerful urge
to drop what I was doing and drive to Detroit to see my father, who was hospitalized with lung problems.
I had visited him just a few days earlier. His emphysema - the price of a lifetime of heavy smoking - was not immediately life-threatening. That's why the impulse to abandon a half-finished column and drive to Detroit seemed so oddly out of proportion.
What would I tell my editor? That I had to leave because of an emergency tremor in the force? A premonition? A feeling? Yeah, right ... But it became increasingly clear, as the afternoon wore on, that the column would not get written. The urge was irresistible; my mind, 90 miles away. I mumbled something like, "Dad ... hospital ... Detroit," as I bolted from the newsroom, moving too quickly for questions.
I already had called my wife, whose work shift kept her on the job into the evening, and described my impulse and my plan. I told her that I wouldn't be there to feed our four kids dinner, or take them to their baseball games.
"Go," she said.
No change?
At the hospital, it seemed my father's condition hadn't changed at all. He was wisecracking with the nurses, and seemed more embarrassed to be in bed, wearing a hospital gown, than sick.
I asked him if he wanted anything, and fully expected him to say, as always, "How about a cold beer and a cigarette?" I was floored when he made a sensible request: A chocolate malt. Very strange.
The best I could come up with was soft-serve ice cream from the hospital cafeteria. My father ate a few spoonfuls before losing interest.
Shortly thereafter, a doctor came in the room and told us that he had discharged my father. We were free to leave immediately. At the time, I interpreted this as good news; only in retrospect did I realize what it really meant - that the doctors had done all they could, and keeping my father in the hospital would have served no purpose.
Going home
My mother and I gathered up his belongings, and wheeled him out into a blistering June afternoon. I maxed out the air conditioning in my station wagon, picked my father up in front of the hospital's main entrance, and drove him and his stuff to his home.
During the 15-minute drive my father went out of his way to compliment me on various things - my work, my family, the smoothness of the wagon's ride, the air-conditioning ... Again, a little odd.
My father was clearly glad to be home, but seemed uncharacteristically subdued. We shuffled through our standard topics of conversation - baseball, fishing, vegetable gardening, Detroit city government ...
Evening came. I said my goodbyes and mumbled to my dozing father that I loved him. His eyes popped open. "What am I - dying?," he joked.
The call came to my house about six hours later. It was my sister, saying that our mother, while checking up on our father, discovered that he had died in his sleep.
I'll always be glad I didn't ignore that unspoken command.
