Wishes

I shared a story on my Facebook wall yesterday, if any of you saw it, I am sorry for the duplication here.  For those of you that did not see it, it was about a couple in Iowa that had been married for 72 years.  They were in a car accident, and were both placed in ICU, together.  The gentleman died holding the hand of the one he loved more than anything in the world.  With their family surrounding them, they noticed that although he had stopped breathing, his heart rate monitor was still registering a heartbeat.  The medical staff said it was the wife’s heartbeat pulsing through her husband’s body.  One hour after the man died, she crossed over to be with him.  The story said they continued to hold hands through the funeral service.

This story touched me at many different levels, to my core.  I am blessed to have a partner that I want to live the rest of my life with, and can’t be without.  After reading the story I was reminded of the movie “The Notebook”.  If you haven’t seen the movie, the closing scene is one which the husband curls up in his wife’s bed in the nursing home, and both of them pass away in their sleep holding one another.

Kim and I have only been married for a little over a year, but we have had many discussions about what we want the end of our lives to be like, and given the choice, we would like to cross over to heaven together.  Although that would seem tragic and would create quite a loss for our family, it is the ending we would prefer.

I look at my parents, and as cruel and heartless as it may sound, I would ask God to take both of them at the same time.  I hope when my Mother reads this she understands what I mean.  They have been together over 50 years, and it is plain to see how much they love and care for one another.  I worry about either one of them being without the other.  I would like them both to know I would be okay while they waited for me in Heaven.

I wish everyone could feel the way I do about Kim, the way my parents feel about each other.  The way Elsa felt about Nick, Mary about Bob, the list goes on and on.  The world would be a much better place.

So if our kids ask, Kim and I want to go together, donate our bodies to science, when they are done poking and prodding, cremate us, mix our ashes together, and sprinkle them on the beach at Chatfield where we were married.  Keep track of everything that day, if it is windy, raining, snowing whatever.  Remember how the day smells, yes, how it smells.  If it is the smell of a crisp winter day or the smell of the leaves in fall, remember it…..  That way, in the years that follow, when you are outside and the wind blows the leaves around and your nose catches that aroma, you will know it is us letting you know we got where we were going and want to say hello.