William’s doctor informed me that William had a weak heart valve and if it was not taken care of, he was likely to only last for eighteen months! I brought him back to California and we started making inquiries for a procedure to repair the valve, even though William didn’t seem very anxious to undergo the surgery. I took William to the V.A. hospital on several occasions where they monitored his condition but, as time passed, other complications like decreased kidney function seemed to preclude corrective surgery. To make matters worse, his doctor informed him that he would probably need dialysis treatments before too long because of his kidney condition. In preparation for that, he went through the process of having a “stint” installed in his arm, and I attended orientation classes with him. This is how things were when the final troubles began.
On the Friday before William’s final visit to the hospital, he started complaining of a general weakness. We talked about it and he said we would wait until Monday and if things did not improve I would take him to see his doctor. By the following Monday, he had not improved. He walked on his own to the car and we drove him to Loma Linda with the full expectation that we would be bringing him home that afternoon. When we arrived at the emergency room, things started happening fast. They took him in right away and Gail went with him. I found a seat and a magazine, expecting a long wait. It was only a few minutes before I was summoned from my seat in the hallway and when I entered his room I immediately knew something was not right. I asked William if he felt alright and he had trouble answering me. I tried again with the same result. I summoned the nurses and had to be stern to get her to come and have a look at him and as soon as she did she instigated emergency procedures. While the staff was gathering, and I was still in the room, I held William’s hand and tried to communicate with him. He looked at me one time and there was a look of fear or shock on his face that left me a little shaken. I think we both realized, at the same moment, that this was it. William would not be going home with us again. Almost immediately his attention was drawn to the corner of the room and a peace came over him. Each time I spoke to him it seemed as if he tried to give me his attention, but his focus was being drawn to that corner of the room as if he saw something or somebody there that none of the rest of us could see. I realized that I was in the way and distracting him from where he needed to be, so I stepped out of the room about the same time the emergency staff came in and started resuscitation procedures. Gail and I both broke down right there in the hallway, and when we finally regained our senses we asked the staff to dispense with their efforts. William was gone, almost exactly eighteen months after his hospital stay in Oklahoma.
William was a religious man and read the Bible every day. That one moment we shared in the intensive care unit will stay with me for the rest of my life. In a way I went through the motions with him while he died, being, first, shocked and surprised by it all, and then knowing the peace that overwhelms the death experience just moments before passing. He renewed my faith in those final moments and I think he would be proud to know that he had done so.
We took him back to Atoka, Oklahoma to be buried next to his wife in a small rural cemetery on Ward’s Chapel Road, one half mile south of highway 7.
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