Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 98

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt I had one day to live. I awoke from the dream to plan my final day.

Morning breaks with a large glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, chased with a bowl of muselix and strawberry yogurt, the way they mix them in Switzerland.

For weather, I enjoy a bright blue sky with a few white puffy clouds and a constant temperature of seventy-six degrees. After breakfast my wife and I take a walk in the woods reminiscing about the night we met in 1966 and the night in 1968 she accepted my proposal.

We come back to the house and lie out in lounge chairs, absorbing some rays. I have missed the feel of sun on my skin ever since 1977 when I had the first of many surgeries for sun-caused skin cancers.

Our three sons and their families come over in the afternoon. I ask the boys to come prepared to share one favorite memory of me. Then we throw a football around, the way we used to do when we were young. Our last meal together is a picnic that includes a few of my favorite things—ripe watermelon, honey-roasted peanuts, a pimento cheese sandwich with tomato and pickle on it, and dark chocolate with almonds.

As the sun begins to set we listen to Louie Armstrong sing, “What a Wonderful World,” watch Forrest Gump, and then for the hundredth time spend several hours reviewing pictures of the children and grandchildren as they evolve from babes to children to adults. After memory-sharing time, I hug each person for a minute or two and whisper to each a final, private, carefully-composed blessing (choking up, characteristically, each time).

Through the mist of tears I thank them for making my life complete. After singing together, with piano and guitar, some golden oldies like “Goodnight, Irene,” “House of the Rising Sun,” and “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling,” I bid them bon voyage, blow them a kiss, and, all done, lay me down to sleep and pleasant dreams.