The Death of Wayne
From James Donahue’s Journal
Doris’s brother Wayne died on St. Patrick’s Day, 1987. I happened to have been home at the time. Doris was working at Caro Hospital. We got a call from Ethel. She said Wayne had fallen on the floor and was unconscious. I ran to the house and got there just ahead of Bub and Jerry. I don’t know if Frank was there or not. Wayne was lying on his bedroom floor in an awkward position, his head propped up against a night table, as if he had attempted to get off the bed and then collapsed to the floor. He was breathing but obviously unconscious.
We called for an ambulance. Wayne had a long history of heart trouble and had not been feeling well. Ethel said he had been working on his car all morning and complained of a severe headache when eating his lunch. He went into the bedroom to lie down for a while. That was when he suffered some kind of attack.
The brothers decided to pick him up off the floor and put him back on the bed. They laid him on his back which was a mistake. Wayne vomited and I was sure he took some of the vomit into his lungs. We turned him on his side and tried to get him breathing again. His face was turning blue by the time the ambulance arrived. The ambulance people shoved some kind of device into Wayne’s mouth and throat, explaining that it would open his lungs and help him breathe. His color was going black by the time they carried him out of the house on a stretcher. I remember how Wayne always talked about leaving his body when he drowned during a swimming mishap, and how he traveled down a black tube to a light. He told of coming into a beautiful garden and hearing lovely music. He said he was angry when Bub pulled him out of the water and revived him. As I watched him being carried out of the house that day I perceived Wayne’s spirit already out of that body looking down upon the family gathered together in that house. I said good-by. I think I said it aloud. I knew in my heart that he was already dead and that I would not see him again.
Doris was at the hospital when they brought Wayne in. She was the technician that went to the emergency room to draw blood and I don’t think she knew the patient was Wayne until she got to ER. She was there when they pronounced him dead. They said he choked to death. An autopsy, however, showed that a main artery was almost blocked and that he had suffered a stroke and possible heart attack. He was in his 60s. His father died at 62 and Wayne’s death at such a young age sparked a belief in the family that everyone was marked for death at that age.
It was a big funeral. Wayne was one of those kinds of people that people just liked to be around. He had a troubled life, was married to a woman who was mentally unstable and put him through a life of hell. He stuck with her through thick and thin, and they raised four children. Wayne was an Army medic in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He returned to Caro and worked for years at a state mental health facility where he dealt with the severely insane. He was attacked on the job and suffered a back injury that left him disabled for the rest of his life. Through all of this, Wayne never lost his sense of humor and his love of his family and all of those that came in contact with him.
By the time of his death, I personally felt closer to Wayne than I did members of my own family. He was like a brother to me. I think he was almost a father figure to Doris. That funeral was among the saddest I have ever experienced. The loss of Wayne was overwhelming to us all. We did not realize it until he was gone, but Wayne had been the glue that kept the Babcock family intact. Once he was gone, things began falling apart.
From James Donahue’s Journal
Doris’s brother Wayne died on St. Patrick’s Day, 1987. I happened to have been home at the time. Doris was working at Caro Hospital. We got a call from Ethel. She said Wayne had fallen on the floor and was unconscious. I ran to the house and got there just ahead of Bub and Jerry. I don’t know if Frank was there or not. Wayne was lying on his bedroom floor in an awkward position, his head propped up against a night table, as if he had attempted to get off the bed and then collapsed to the floor. He was breathing but obviously unconscious.
We called for an ambulance. Wayne had a long history of heart trouble and had not been feeling well. Ethel said he had been working on his car all morning and complained of a severe headache when eating his lunch. He went into the bedroom to lie down for a while. That was when he suffered some kind of attack.
The brothers decided to pick him up off the floor and put him back on the bed. They laid him on his back which was a mistake. Wayne vomited and I was sure he took some of the vomit into his lungs. We turned him on his side and tried to get him breathing again. His face was turning blue by the time the ambulance arrived. The ambulance people shoved some kind of device into Wayne’s mouth and throat, explaining that it would open his lungs and help him breathe. His color was going black by the time they carried him out of the house on a stretcher. I remember how Wayne always talked about leaving his body when he drowned during a swimming mishap, and how he traveled down a black tube to a light. He told of coming into a beautiful garden and hearing lovely music. He said he was angry when Bub pulled him out of the water and revived him. As I watched him being carried out of the house that day I perceived Wayne’s spirit already out of that body looking down upon the family gathered together in that house. I said good-by. I think I said it aloud. I knew in my heart that he was already dead and that I would not see him again.
Doris was at the hospital when they brought Wayne in. She was the technician that went to the emergency room to draw blood and I don’t think she knew the patient was Wayne until she got to ER. She was there when they pronounced him dead. They said he choked to death. An autopsy, however, showed that a main artery was almost blocked and that he had suffered a stroke and possible heart attack. He was in his 60s. His father died at 62 and Wayne’s death at such a young age sparked a belief in the family that everyone was marked for death at that age.
It was a big funeral. Wayne was one of those kinds of people that people just liked to be around. He had a troubled life, was married to a woman who was mentally unstable and put him through a life of hell. He stuck with her through thick and thin, and they raised four children. Wayne was an Army medic in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He returned to Caro and worked for years at a state mental health facility where he dealt with the severely insane. He was attacked on the job and suffered a back injury that left him disabled for the rest of his life. Through all of this, Wayne never lost his sense of humor and his love of his family and all of those that came in contact with him.
By the time of his death, I personally felt closer to Wayne than I did members of my own family. He was like a brother to me. I think he was almost a father figure to Doris. That funeral was among the saddest I have ever experienced. The loss of Wayne was overwhelming to us all. We did not realize it until he was gone, but Wayne had been the glue that kept the Babcock family intact. Once he was gone, things began falling apart.