© by Susan McWhorter 1998
All Rights Reserved
page by Jilli

THE OTHER SIDE OF SORROW

©June1998   Susan McWhorter

aka ginsue

The summer had sped past them as usual. Him working unbelievable hours. As many in a week as most people took two to three weeks to achieve. No one knew how he did it. It was his job, his love, his life, and he gave it his all. Even in his sleep he was working. Dreaming, of ways to do something better, faster,safer,cheaper.

He did not have time for many of the family things that everyone always looked forward to. Family vacations and such had went by the wayside long ago. A few family trips to the Ozark Mountains while the kids had all been young, not yet teenagers, had been enjoyable. But, those had stopped, as he had become more and more consumed in his work.

That fall he had come down with a cold, unsual for him, and it just would not go away. It never detoured him from his job. Work came first. No one seemed to notice that sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas his cough had become more persistant and worse,although now it was waking her up at nights.

Besides his day job, he also bartended weekends at the local nightclub. The man was a blazing fireball that refused to be put out. New Years' Eve he bartended as usual. but, he was getting sweaty and short of breath, something you never saw happen to him.

Then towards the end of January the cough had become almost constant and he had started coughing up small amounts of blood. That he had failed to complain about, until she caught him hiding tissues full of blood and mucus.

"Enough!" she declared one morning as he was getting ready for work. He had dressed and came into the living room. Bent over at the waist, not able to stand straight for the pain in his chest and back. She told him he had a choice, she could drive him to the emergency room, as he had no personal doctor. Or, she could drag him into the emergency room. He decided she could drive him in.

Waiting for the doctor, he told her in his matter-of-fact voice,   "Now I am not staying here, they can give me medicine and send me home." X-rays showed a dark spot in his lungs, the left one was by far the worse, almost completely dark. Pneumonia. He would have to stay in the hospital. Four days later he was dismissed, the pneumonia was still there, but he could go home, continue the medicine, and see the doctor in two weeks.

Two weeks later new x-rays showed no improvment. The doctor told him, they had to assume there was a blockage and he wanted him to see a lung specialist. This was on Valentines' Day.   Five days later they went to see the specialist. After reviewing the x-rays they told them that a biopsy was in order, because there was indeed a tumor in the left lung, and it was huge.

The biopsy only confirmed their worst fear. It was cancerous. A cancer specialist was now called in. He was there within minutes. His words froze them all in fear.   "Begin a regiment of intense chemotherapy, NOW, without this form of attack you may live another six weeks.

He looked up at her from his bed and then to the doctor and with a low, soft, but steady voice he said,   "I have thirteen grandkids, lets do it!!"

This was on February 19th. They buried him on September 17th, the 19th would have been their 29th wedding anniversary.

He never returned to work after the day she forced his hand to go to the hospital, although he visited there often just to keep up with the goings on and see his co-workers. He was lost without his work.

He did not look human those last few hours of his life. He reminded her of an alien, and maybe he was. He was leaving this world for another. one where he would be on the other side of sorrow.