A Better Plan #FridayFictioneers

Photo credit @Adam Ickes

A Better Plan

Wanting to disappear, I curled into myself and buried my head under the soft pillow. If I made myself small enough, I could hide from the last hours of my dad’s life.
You wrapped around me, wanting to shield me from my grief.
“No more suffering,” you said but I wasn’t sure who’s suffering you meant.
“It feels like I killed him,” I confessed.
“He begged me to push him off a dock and leave him. I couldn’t do it,” you whispered.

“That’s just stupid,” I lifted my head with a soft chuckle, “God, I’m going to miss that ridiculous old cowboy.”

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In control until his last breath, my father died exactly 24 hours after he told the hospice nurse, “This will all be over by tomorrow.” The story is true and I’m so glad that my husband didn’t agree to my dad’s demand. Calling hospice was exactly the right thing to do. He had a good death with my sister and I at his bedside. I couldn’t have wished for a better ending to his story. And a day doesn’t go by that I don’t miss him and his tales and his sense of humor.

For more 100 word stories sail over to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields‘ website and follow the dock to Friday Fictionners. (Oops, I guess it’s a bridge and not a dock.)