October 21, 2010
True Stories, Made up Names – 1
Posted in Cancer stories at 1:51 pm by ribbonofhope
William came to the hospital with some pain in his chest that wouldn’t go away. He was a cheerful, middle-aged gentleman who lived alone and worked hard at manual labor. He spoke highly of his church and his pastor. He knew some Bible verses by heart.
The pain in his chest was a collapsed lung, and he had lung cancer. William had a contagious smile and was quick to tell stories about leaving his family in New Orleans to come up here for work. Now his brothers and sisters were scattered around the country because of Hurricane Katrina.
As he neared the end, when treatments no longer worked, we discovered that he had a daughter out West who was a lawyer. He knew how to contact her, but he never did. Finally he was persuaded to allow her to be informed of his condition. She immediately boarded a plane, arrived here in the evening, and called the hospital about visiting yet that evening. William spoke to her, but told her to wait until morning to visit. He died that night. He didn’t want to disappoint his daughter by letting her see how he really was, a poor laborer with a simple life and few friends.
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell.
