Timeline: Tuesday March 23, 1999 - Wednesday March 24, 1999

Thus began one of the strangest days of my life.

My 42 year old husband died at 4:15 am and I'm alone. I mean, really alone.

I took a few minutes alone with him and then went out to the nurses' station to see what I needed to do next. They told me they would contact the funeral home in Tulsa and a funeral home in Houston would come "pick him up."

I asked if we needed to do that right away or if we could wait a bit.

They told me if I was going to keep him very much longer they'd need to turn down the temperature in the room. OOOOOOOooooooo no...that's creepy.

No, I didn't want to keep him THAT much longer. I just wasn't really ready to part with him quite yet. I went back to the room and packed up our belongings, talking to him, still talking to him, all the while.

I finally went to the nurses' station and told them I was ready about 6:00 am. The funeral home came for xebra and I kissed him goodbye one last time as they rolled him out underneath a red velvet cover.

Then I had to start making the dreaded phone calls. First to my parents. Dad said he would take the first plane out to help me haul everything back to Tulsa. We agreed to meet at the hotel where they stayed when they were visiting before.

Then .... sigh ... his dad. It's not like it was a big surprise or anything, but it still wasn't easy. They volunteered to call the rest of the family. I sure appreciated that.

My aunt took the day off work and we took the short walk together down to M. D. Anderson. I let some of his nurses know about his demise. Then my aunt dropped me off at the hotel. I left all our stuff at the hospice. I figured dad and I would pick it up later. His plane was supposed to land about 11:00 am. I figured... oh...about noon he ought to be at the hotel.

Noon. No dad.

12:30. No dad.

I called the airline. Had the plane arrived?
Yes it had. Two minutes early in fact.
Yes, dad was even on the plane. They confirmed that for me.

BUT...

He didn't pick up the rental car they had reserved for him.

I called the hospice to see if we had gotten our wires crossed about where to meet. No answer in the room and it rolled to the nurses' station. "Nope," they told me. "Nobody waiting for you."

I made what seems like hundreds of phone calls trying to find him. I had him paged in the airport. I called mom (who was having a bridge party), I called the rental car company, I called the police, I started calling hospitals... I remember looking out the hotel window at one point and saying out loud, "HOW MUCH MORE CAN I TAKE IN ONE DAY? MY HUSBAND JUST DIED AND NOW MY FATHER IS MISSING!"

I called the room at the hospice one more time and this time dad answered. All of the sudden I started breathing again. Yes, he didn't remember where we were supposed to meet and he was just in the bathroom the last time I called.

It's surprising to me. For everything that happened that day, I actually stayed very calm for the most part. I was trying to take care of business. Maybe they call that shock. I dunno.

The next day dad and I packed up everything in his rent-a-car from a DIFFERENT company (argh) and headed back to Tulsa on an airplane.

Dad dropped me off at my house and I hauled all our stuff (remember xebra was never a light packer) into the suddenly empty shell.

Very empty.