Uncle Cal R.I.P.

“Love itself shall linger on.”

Mom had another story about Uncle Cal's death:

After his futile operation, while Uncle Cal was in the hospital waiting to die, Mom and Dad drove down to San Diego and rented a motel room near the hospital so they could visit him every day.

Uncle Cal got weaker and weaker and then slipped into a coma.

His body looked dead and did not respond in any way to his family or to Mom and Dad, but the monitor the hospital had rigged up over his bed showed that his heart was still beating.

For three days Uncle Cal lay in this coma while my Mother, Dad and other relatives took turns holding his hand and praying for, if not his recovery, than at least for a merciful death.

On the morning of the fourth day, my mother told me she asked one of the doctors if there was any hope that Uncle Cal would recover.

"Not really, lady,' said the young doctor, "Actually he's been dead for a couple of days now, but we just haven't turned off the machines."

A little later the doctors turned off their machines and pronounced Uncle Cal defunct.

"It wasn't fair." Mom said, "We didn't know when to start grieving! And maybe poor Cal's body didn't even know it was dead!"

Cal's insurance company was paying about $20,000 per day for his hospitalization in the Intensive Care Unit, and I assume some people were in no real hurry to pronounce him officially dead.

Tomasito, 2008

...