“Any last words, Uncle Charlie? Anything you want to say?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Last words?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yes, Uncle Charlie,” said his nephew Frank. “As many of the family as possible are here. Have you any last words for us?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lights were turned down in the old man’s second-floor bedroom. Nieces, grandchildren, even his second-cousin Felix from Cincinnati, were there. And Felix didn’t have too much time left either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?” There was no need for the old man to wear his hearing aids anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Anything?” asked his granddaughter Felice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lonely fly buzzed in the room. Felice swatted at it. She did not wish the insect to ruin this last memory of her grandfather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m afraid this is it,” said Ralph, Charlie’s nephew, who came from outside Providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is it?” Did the old man comprehend?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Has he gone?” whispered Otto in the back of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He only meant do you have any last thing to say,” said Frank. “I’m sorry this is it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is it?” repeated Charlie<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Right,” said Frank, wiping his eye with the napkin he had used to go after the fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
” All she wrote,” agreed Ralph. He talked the way they do in Providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Please, Uncle Charlie, you’ve got to accept it. Is there anything you want to say?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old man looked across the wall of faces. “How many times do I have to keep telling you? ‘This is it?’ \u2013 Those are the last words.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?” questioned Otto from the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surprisingly, the old man seemed to hear. He knew Otto was hard of hearing also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“OTTO\u2026 THIS IS IT?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Any last words, Uncle Charlie? Anything you want to say?” “Last words?” “Yes, Uncle Charlie,” said his nephew Frank. “As many of the family as possible are here. Have you any last words for us?” The lights were turned down in the old man’s second-floor bedroom. Nieces, grandchildren, even his second-cousin Felix from Cincinnati, were … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-Rd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3301,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions\/3301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
David Sydney is a physician from Newtown. Pennsylvania.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"