Going Home

"Home is where you always return,

no matter how long you've been gone."

I was sitting in another hospital room with my friend Al last week as doctors and nurses and aides came in and out, temporarily interrupting our conversation. It was during those moments that I allowed myself to take a different look at the surroundings...a maze of machines and wires, tubes, bags, a white board with names and numbers-- things I didn't understand.

What I did understand was that my dear friend was very sick and that he wasn't getting better.

It's been a tough road for Al recently. He got through his first big rounds of chemotherapy last summer without a lot of complications but has been experiencing significant challenges with breathing and fluid build-up around his right lung. The last 90 days have been a series of  trips in and out of the ICU and Critical Care as he and his doctors have wrestled with the effects of the cancer.

Mercifully, he was able to be home at Thanksgiving and Christmas and was also able to be present and active during the annual holiday open house he and his wife, Michaela host annually. Georgette and I joined them for dinner and a movie in November as well.

But January has been hard, really hard.

It wasn't that long ago, last May in fact, when after our weekly Saturday morning breakfast, Al mentioned he was going in for a bronchoscopy, that there a mass on his right lung.

It wasn't that long ago that we sat in his hospital room and talked of doing a bike ride next spring, down in Louisiana where the terrain is flat and the rides are only 40 miles a day.

It wasn't that long ago that we were all hoping for a couple of more years,  a couple more diner and movie nights, a couple of more springtimes.

I was there at his home shortly after Christmas when he shared with me that their daughter was pregnant and that they were going to be grandparents for the first time. I saw the tears in his eyes as he told me how excited they were and I felt the uncertainty that surrounded their joy.

So as I sat there just a few days ago and visited with Al, I could tell that something had changed. We had a few private moments where the conversation went beyond the events of the day to the reality of his future. He just wanted to go home.

Then the e-mail from Michaela that arrived a day ago letting all of us know that he was going to be transported by ambulance on Friday, to their home in the small Iowa town just outside on Omaha where he wants to spend the time he has left with family and friends.  I felt a deep sadness reading that note, telling me what I was afraid of hearing, that the fight was nearly over. And part of me said a prayer of gratitude that he will get to go home, to the place he loves, to be with the people he loves and who love him back.

I hope to see him again, maybe this weekend. I have a few things I want to say, things I think he knows, yet things I want to say just one more time.

My dear friend Al is going home and for that, I am truly grateful.