Last ofThe Hospice

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When the young man finally left the small hospice room, and headed towards the main entrance of the hospice, he felt strangely happy. He recalled his suppressed anger at his father, when a month earlier he had attended his mother's death-bed, and she had begged him to go to New Zealand, to seek out the father he had never known, in all of his thirty-three years. Although he had said the right words to his mother, that he would fulfill her dying wish, at that time there was no forgiveness in his heart, for the denial of his father's love, over all of those years. Of course, with the help of his grandparents, his mother had loved him enough to grow him into a strong and confident man, but his father would still have a reckoning to face up to. It had taken a lot of the wind from his sails, when he finally managed to track his father down, only to find him dying of a cancer, which had also taken his mother. Even when he had found his father in that condition,dying, without knowing that he had a son or grandchildren, there had been no intention to forgive. The young man marvelled at how, mainly for his mother's sake, he had relented just enough, so that he could manage that kindly lie to his father,

that like his mother, he too had forgiven him. He marvelled that how, in the speaking of the lie, it had become the truth! "Goodbye Mr McKillen." said the young nurse, as he passed her in the foyer, while heading towards the exit.

"Call me Vern! Same as the old man. he replied, with not a little love and pride, in the acknowledgement of the fact.
The circumstances of his father's passing and of his mother's wise counsel, had given him a small glimpse of an order in the universe, which was not made, nor controlled by 'Man' , or his religions. While being merely glimpsed, that order had given him great comfort, and Vern knew, that whatever the future held for him, it would not be without purpose. He wondered if his father had recognised that purpose at the moment of his passing,and if he had somehow known, that the son he found and began to love only moments before his death, was also a father and a poet. Vern Junior felt a small shudder of excitement within, in the happy realisation, and confidence, that whatever life was in truth, it was unfolding as it should.

*** Original from Denthepen's (Dennis Pennefather) popourri novelette,' An Almost Understanding'

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