My friend Warren Cardwell died this morning. I saw him yesterday and he clasped my hand and said “I’ll see you on the other side when the time comes.” Many of you know Warren from my writing on the Hospice Journal. I came to know him and his wife Helen when she entered hospice and Izzy and I visited them for more than a year before she died. He came to care for  Maria as well.  Warren cared for Helen for more than seven years after she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Hospice asked me to encourage Warren to bend a bit on things like accepting a hospital bed – he didn’t want anything to change. We butted heads for months. He was close to immovable, unless it was something that would make Helen more comfortable.

After she was gone, our relationship changed. I was no longer a volunteer but a friend. We had so many  talks. He loved to go on about history, politics, farming.

Even as Warren’s legs failed and he could no longer move around freely, he was always smiling, together, concerned about me and interested in my life. As stubborn as a mule, there was nothing of the narcissist in him. When I sat by his side yesterday and leaned over to speak to him, I whispered to him to stop fighting, to let go. He opened his eyes and looked at me, gasping for each breath. “How are you, Jon?,” he said. “Hows the new book? Have you sold the farm yet? Come back tomorrow with your beautiful wife.”

Warren never read my blog, sent an e-mail, got a computer. When he couldn’t move anymore, he bought  a cell phone but never used it or received a phone call on it.

Now that he is gone, I can also say honestly that Warren was one of the reasons I left hospice work. I could not bear to see people like  him die again and again. So I needed some time off. He also inspires me to keep doing this work, perhaps with Red.

Izzy came to visit Warren regularly, as he had Helen, until Izzy died. I brought Red to see Warren several times in recent months, and Warren, a great dog lover, connected to him as much as he had Izzy.

His dog Prince died a few weeks ago and Warren – the embodiment of the World War II generation – took care of everyone and everything before he died. He settled his affairs, wrote the proper letters, asked me to speak as his funeral, which I will happily do.  He was a proud, willful and brave man. He never once complained as he withered from leukemia, heart failure and other problems. He remained in his beautiful home to the end, dying in his favorite special reclining chair – the one I badgered him to get and went with him to pick out – precisely as he intended.  Warren and I spent so many afternoons sitting in that room talking about life, death, family. He was so anxious to rejoin Helen, and it makes me smile to think he is there now. So long, friend, I will see you on the other side when the time comes.

In the days after Helen died – Warren’s devotion to her always inspired me – I read him this passage from a Mary Oliver poem. He loved it and always asked me to bring it and read it.

“..to live in this world,

you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it against your bones

knowing your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.”