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12:45 am on March 17, 2009, Brian O'Neill left this world for the next.

I wish so much I could fill you with words of wisdom and inspiration. In essence, I feel nothing. No pain. No relief. No peace. No confusion. No. No. No. Nothing. Jan calls it numbness. I guess that is normal.

I wish I could tell you the last day of Brian's life was peaceful. It was not. You read my dear sister Mindi's posts about Brian's seizures. The look on Brian's face on Monday morning was not peaceful. It was one caught between a world view and a spiritual view. It was one caught between wanting to be a Dad and wanting to go to his heavenly Dad.

Brian, this morning, was obviously agitated and had not slept for the 4th consecutive night. He was illogical and strange in his movements. He was stroking my hair and trying to kiss me without being able to muster a pucker at the same time. The last words I heard Brian say were to me. I looked him square in the eye this morning, told him I was a better person for having known him, that it was okay to go and that I loved him.

He said, Yeah I love you too.

Then he struggled for the next several hours. I told him repeatedly it was okay to go. Jesus was waiting for him. His heavenly father loved him WAY more than even I love him or than he loved me or his boys.

We had to call an ambulance to get his seizures under control at the hospital. His oncologist urged us to do this. He knew we didn't want to go. He also knew we were not going to get this under control at home. He was, as he always has, thinking of our entire family unit.

I look for reasons. For answers. I am trying to make myself feel better and I realize this. I am not looking for affirmation, so please do not try.

I think part of the reason for Brian's seizures this morning was his desire to keep fighting for his boys. For his desire to be a Daddy for longer. For his desire to stay with me. He was looking me in the eye as he started to seize and lose control of his body. His spirit left us this morning. His body caught up tonight/morning.

Also, I think part of the reason, and I have to keep telling myself there is a reason because this did not happen according to my desires and plan - peacefully at home, was that the memory of this happening at home would have been too painful. He would have died inches away from me as I write this. I do not have a laptop. I am stuck in a room in the house writing this in a chair. A chair that would have forever been inches away from where Brian took his last breath and it would have been too painful.

I also think part of the reason is that the boys were with their grandma and grandpa in Missouri - surrounded by love and fun and joy. Brian would have wanted that. He would have wanted them playing and laughing and running and fishing. That is EXACTLY what he would have wanted. The did not witness the final hours of the struggle in Brian's life. I think, without them here, he was able to let go a little faster. I struggled with whether or not Brian would want them to see him as he was when the arrived home today. Brian and God took care of it. There is no question now. They will not see him as he was. The will remember him instead for who he was in their lives.

I wish I could tell you I heard Brian's last breath and I said good-bye. In reality, I succumbed to sleep and exhaustion from the day myself. I was laying next to the shell of a person that was Brian's rhythmically breathing body in the hospital bed. I was lying there and I finally got up and went to the cot next to the bed. I left his bed around 11:15 or 11:30. Jan got up around 12:30 and noticed he was not breathing. He was gone. I have to tell myself that he needed me to be on my own. He needed me to know that I have to now go through this life on my own two feet without his caressing of my face and hair and so he decided to leave after I left his bed and went to his side instead- NEAR, but not ON him.

I am glad Jan had the sense that told us he had left us. I am glad it was Jan and not me. There are certain things a mother knows that will never go away and I take comfort in that as a mother now. I am, of course, saying this to make myself feel better. But I am glad, too. I am torn, but glad.


I wish I could have been the one to tell you all the things I wanted to tell you. I wanted a peaceful, memorable experience. I wanted to tell the world about all the glory God showed in Brian's final hours. In the end, I don't know what to say. I am at a loss for words, (several paragraphs later, mind you). I will leave you with what I know Brian would want me to say...


KEEP BELIEVING