My Story: Ashley McGhee Whittle

TITLE: My Story – Part Six: Paul Brigmon’s death

AUTHOR: Ashley McGhee Whittle

PERMISSION TO PUBLISH granted by the author.  All rights reserved.

He talked slow, measured. Thought about what he was going to say before he said it.  He enjoyed listening to other people more than he enjoyed talking.  He was able to get the measure of a person real quick because he was an active listener.  Active listening is something really important in college in the first few years. That’s a skill you try to teach. He was a natural at it. You could ask him questions and he would talk, but he was so private.  He was not religious.  He was not a churchgoer.  

His body broke down. He had high blood pressure and ulcers, too, but he was very good about going to the doctor.  He went to the doctor religiously and did what he was supposed to do – except for eating.  He didn’t give a shit what they said about eating; he was going to eat what he wanted to eat.  He had a huge belly. Around 2004, he had a massive heart attack and had to leave Norfolk Southern. Right before he had the heart attack, probably a year before, he got started walking.  He had a walking stick that he carried with him, and he got to where he was walking five miles a day.  That was when he had his heart attack, while he was walking in the morning. The neighbor picked him up and took him back home.  Two weeks after the heart attack, he had a massive stroke.  He was sitting out on the front porch.  Nana walked outside, and he turned to look at her, and the whole side of his face was just dropped down.  She was able to get him back inside and get 911 called. He was in rehab over at Mission [Hospital in Asheville] for months after that.  

Nana died in 2011. About a year prior to 2011, she’d started having some breathing trouble, and they found a bunch of spots in her lungs. She never had them biopsied, and about a year later, she ended up going into the hospital.  She was in the hospital for about a week, and they found out it was lung cancer.  They gave her about six weeks to live and sent her to hospice when they discharged her.  She passed away within 24 hours of being in hospice. Daddy was in very bad shape; he was in a wheelchair at this time.  He’d been diagnosed with a Parkinson’s-like disease.  He was having real trouble getting around at that point. We were not able to take him over to the hospital to see her.  He was devastated.  That night that we went in, he was real upset.  

We had her funeral in Old Fort.  He didn’t want to go.  He didn’t want people to see him like he was.  He did OK, he did all right for the next year.  He got up and got through the day.  I’d call him every morning on my way to work, and we would talk on the phone. And he would call me in the evenings on my way home. His mind was sharp as a tack, but his speech had been affected by the stroke. It got so that right there at the end, the only person who could understand him was me.

He died eleven months after Nana died. In 2012, he had another massive heart attack.  That was what killed him. I remember the day before he died, I had split up from somebody I had been with for eight years. I remember calling Daddy when I was on my way to my house that I was renting.  I got upset on the phone, and I said, “I am so lonely, Daddy,” and he told me on the phone, he said, “I am, too.” And later that night at 11 o’clock, Mama called me and said, “You’re going to have to get up and meet me up there, because something’s wrong with Daddy.  He’s called me and told me I need to come.” So we went up there and went in, and he was in there in the bed.  He was holding his head.  His face was blood red, and he was telling us, “My head is busting.” His blood pressure was through the roof, and it was causing his head to bust.  We called 911, and the ambulance came and picked him up. We followed the ambulance.  This is in the middle of the night at this point. We got to the end of the Catawba River, where there’s a gas station right there on the right.  I had his DNR [Do Not Resuscitate] papers in my truck, but I couldn’t find them, so I couldn’t give them to the guys on the ambulance before we got down to the hospital.  They pulled into the gas station right there and started doing CPR on him.  We could see them through the back window.  He had been intubated when we got down to the hospital, and we told them that’s not what he wants.  I told Mama, I said,“Nana came and got him. She got him before he got off the river and took him home.” And he was waiting on her to come. He was a good man.

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