Sometimes Love Hurts Read Free Page A

celebrate Halloween with a party at his workplace.  She and her parents all became clowns for the day.  The bakery warehouse was decorated in a spooky manner with orange and black streamers falling from the ceiling, and matching balloons attached.  They placed oversized cobwebs on the walls, and created a couple of large pretend spiders that appeared to be crawling toward them.  They also played funny music like, “Monster Mash”, and there were games, dunk for apples, and making mummies out of each other using toilet paper.  To further the fun and the scares, a haunted house was created in one of the warehouse trucks.  Some of the male employees dressed like zombies and vampires, and jumped out of the darkness to frighten all who were brave enough to enter.  A couple of the men held power saws that hummed when they ran after some of the kids and their mothers.  All that excitement made everyone hungry, so there were plenty of Sloppy Joeys, potato chips, and candy. It was perfect memory.
     
    Lisa desperately needed to hang on to these memories because the last couple of years of her father’s life were definitely not fun anymore.  Michael’s kidneys failed and her mother, Natalie, took care of him full-time.  Lisa was living at school per her parents’ request, while her mom was busy taking her dad to dialysis, trying to make him eat something each day, and constantly reminding him to take his medication.  When he ran a fever, her mother rushed him to the hospital, and sat with him for hours on end.  It certainly took a toll on her.  She looked as though she had aged many years in just a short time.  Finally when her father was too weak to climb the stairs to their bedroom, her mother had a hospital bed put into the living room.
    It was one of the hardest things her mother ever had to do.  Lisa remembered her mother telling her that after so many years, she dreaded the thought of him not being in the bedroom with her.
    Night after night as he grew weaker and weaker, her mother often fell asleep on a recliner beside her father’s new bed so she could be near him.  Her father had lost a lot of weight.  His face lacked depth, and his mental state deteriorated rapidly.  When he made a sudden move or his breathing turned too shallow, her mother made sure she was nearby.  Eventually, oxygen was delivered to the house to help him breathe. The apparatus included tubing with prongs that went into his nose called a nasal cannula.  Finally, they had to consider all of their options, and cried together as they talked about Michael possibly going into hospice care.  But her mother chose to remain by his side.  Some days she took out their photo albums and showed him pictures of their happy life together.  Sometimes she put on one of their favorite old movies, and they watched it together.  Still other times, she played music, stroked his hair, and simply held him hoping he would stay with her for just one more day.
    The fateful day finally arrived and her father passed away.  The funeral was held on a stormy day, which seemed appropriate as tears streamed from the faces of Natalie and Lisa as they stood at the burial ground.  Lisa held onto her mother’s waist while the wind slapped mercilessly against them. As they made their way back to the car, it was hard for either of them to believe that he was really gone.  He had been a good husband and father.  Both knew they would miss him dearly.
    Lisa had never experienced death before and felt such a strong and painful tugging at her heart.  Her mother whispered under her breath that she did not know how she could possibly carry on without him.  Natalie’s face was pale and her eyes puffy from all the tears she shed those last few days.  She had always been a strong woman – the rock of the family.  When she dropped her mother at home, Lisa did not think twice about promising to visit in a couple of days to check up on her. Natalie gave her daughter a