The Q life Grief Journey

Saturdays had always been our day. The sirens would sound at noon, and right on cue, Quinten and Lenny would walk across the driveway from his cabin to our front door. It was a small tradition, comforting and familiar.

But on Saturday, July 12th, 2025, the moment I saw Quinten’s face, I knew something was different. Something was wrong.

He stood in the doorway, tired and hurting, and said quietly,
“I can’t walk over again. It’s time for the hospital bed, Momma.”

We had talked about this moment before, the moment he would ask. He told me that when it was truly the end, he would tell me, and I would know. And I did. His cabin was only a short walk from our home, but that morning it had become too far.

I got him settled on the couch and called hospice. The bed would be delivered that day.

And still, because it was Saturday, we carried on with family dinner, even though every breath felt heavier. Kevin and Terra arrived with little Lincoln. James took Kevin outside to burn boxes in the burn barrel, his way of bracing himself for what was coming.

Quinten noticed James wasn’t inside. He wanted to see him. He tried to stand up to go out to the porch, but the moment he rose, he collapsed to the floor in pain. I screamed for James, and somehow, with strength we didn’t know we had, he and I got Quinten back onto the couch.

I checked him for injuries. Nothing appeared broken. But the fall, the shaking hands, the confusion in his eyes… deep down, I knew. The cancer had likely reached his brain.

A little later, Quinten asked again to sit on the porch. He wanted to watch James and Kevin burn boxes. With Terra holding the door and me steadying him, we got him to James’s chair outside. His hands trembled harder than ever.

He looked at Terra and said the words he had never said out loud before:
“I’m dying.”
And she said softly, “I know, Quinten… and I’m sorry.”

He grew tired, so we helped him to our bedroom so he could rest in our bed. I asked whether he wanted me to call his sister. Whitney hadn’t planned to come that day; she was very pregnant, swollen, and tired. But Quinten said yes. When I reached for my phone, he picked up his own instead. With his shaking hands and a little help from me, he called her.

“Whit… I fell down… and I’m dying. Can you come see me?”

She cried. She asked if it was time. I told her yes.
She and Jared rushed over.

Inside, we kept cooking dinner: James’s BBQ ribs, baked beans, and my potato salad. I was baking chocolate chip cookies for dessert, Quinten’s favorite.

Whitney arrived and immediately climbed into our bed beside Quinten. Jared sat in a folding chair at his side. Whitney fed her brother what would be his last meal. I gave him a spoonful of cookie dough. He smiled for that.

Then Quinten began calling for us one by one.
He told James he wouldn’t make the beach trip that was three weeks away. James told him that it was okay and that we would handle everything.
He called for me, asking the hardest question a mother can hear:
“Momma… do I have your permission to die?”

And because I loved him, because I would never hold him back from peace, I told him yes, that he had my permission. I showed him the shirt I had bought for him to be buried in.
“Good job, Mom,” he whispered.

He grew tired, drifting in and out. Whitney and Jared left with my promise to keep them updated.

We were still waiting for the hospital bed. So James and Kevin moved the couch to the dining room to make space. When the bed arrived, the deliveryman set it up quickly.

Then came the hardest part: getting Quinten from our bed to the hospital bed in the living room. James and Kevin lifted him, pushing their strength past what any of us should have had, while I steadied and guided.

“Dig deep, Quinten,” James told him. “The deepest.”

And he did. He always did.

When they got him settled, Lenny jumped right into the bed with him, curling beside him the way he always had. We tucked Quinten in, raised the side rails, and he went right to sleep.

I slept in the living room with him that night, in James’s recliner. Somewhere around 3 a.m., he woke and asked where his phone was. I told him it was in my bedroom, turned off.
“Okay, good,” he said, and drifted back to sleep.

It was one of the last nights he would ever spend in our home as the son I could still reach.

But it was the night he was surrounded by all the love he ever needed and the night we began letting him go, one breath at a time.