It has been a Year--How Time Flies!

It has been one year since my brother Billy passed away quietly at home in Grafton,Massachusetts. It doesn't seem possible. How time flies! It seems like only yesterday that I was visiting him in the hospital about a week before he died. His daughter Patty was there receiving instructions from the doctor about hospice and medications to administer at home because everything that could have been done for Bill had been done and he would soon be discharged from the St Vincent's Hospital. I took the opportunity to speak with my brother and I went up close to him as his voice was weak. He told me that it was important for him to die with dignity, and I tried to assure him that he was doing very well.
My brother Ray and I made the drive down to Grafton the day my brother died. I will never forget that scene as long as I live. His son David was at the foot of the bed slightly to the right playing songs beautifully on his violin. You could tell that his father was listening. Cousin Bob Ford came in and made a nice impromptu narration to Bill about what a great job he did as a father. After Bob left, it was time for Ray and I to leave. I knew it would be the last time. What happened next had to have been planned by Bill just as he planned the whole thing---funeral and all!!! As I started to leave I heard his voice stronger than I expected call me back, and this is what he said, "Leo, I'm leaving NO FORWARDING ADDRESS."... Billy had a certain look like someone who stole the last cookie from the cookie jar. He had that look at that moment. Only someone who worked in special delivery in the post office for all those years could think of a perfect ending line like that! Perfect, but too emotional for me. It was tough going home. The music of David, the poetry of Steven, the sensitivity of his daughters, and the strength of his wife
said to everybody, This is what FAMILY means, and I noticed that at the wake it seemed that most of the people there were "neighbors".
My brother Billy planned everything including the music at his funeral. The one song that he wanted but was not sung was "DANNY BOY" and if sometime if his son David will accompany me on one of my nursing home jaunts, I will sing DANNY BOY for Billy accompanied by David Coleman on the guitar or the violin or that third instrument you play, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but you can add as a COMMENT......I would say more, but I have to go....It is Good Friday and Shirley and I are singing in church tonight in about an hour.......