Part Three,Continued.

                      "To everything there is a season,and a time to every purpose under Heaven..."











When those two soldiers, or two policemen come to your door,you think you know what it's going to be like. How could you not.Most people are not ignorant of such things.It's been talked about before.In very few places is the possibility of such things ignored. So you think you know what it will be like. You've imagined what the day will be like, and you think you know.But you don't. You think you know how you will react, what the sensations will be, but you have no idea. You might even imagine,as you reach for the phone that you know exactly what the news will be, because you've been prepared by circumstance and situation.So you just say, on your way across the room, this is the day.It's not really unexpected. You might well be surprised.

I crossed the floor, toward my open door.Where is that damn phone anyway?I'm going to have to spent time hunting for it.But it's right there on the bed.Sit down.Pick it up. I thought I would be steady, but my fingers are not and they fumble. My father's been sick for years.Drinking,two packs a day,driving the car at ninety miles an hour. Stroke after stroke. I can barely track his conversations now.Today's the day. Some things slow to a crawl, some things speed up. I can nearly feel the house as it creaks and breathes, weathering a Calgary winter.

And then I'm talking to my sister.For the life of me, now that some time has past, I can't remember which of my sisters it was. But I heard these words:" Mom and Dad were coming back from Fredericton. there was an accident on the Berry Mills road ,and Mom didn't make it."

She proceeded to tell of the events.They'd gone to Fredericton to pick up one of my sisters kids, my nephew. The weather was bad, visibility poor. As they were passing the city dump, only about ten minutes from home, a young man just getting off work crossed the center line and collided with their van.Both he and my mother were killed. My father was taken to the hospital, already crippled with infirmity, and now with all of his ribs broken. My nephew was in the hospital as well.

My one thought, the one thing that mattered most to me at the time: did my mother die instantly?Or did she suffer? "No," said my sister. "She lived for a short time, but was declared dead at the scene." Impaled upon the steering wheel I'm told, her life pouring out onto a cold icy road. And I wondered what her last thoughts had been.My great fear is that they were "There are only moments left now...and I haven't seen my son in over a decade." There is no way to know for certain, But that's what I imagined them to be.