I realize full well that you initially wrote this story more than five years ago.
It is an excellent story. However, your 63 prior reviewers did you no favors by rating it so highly, probably based upon its emotional impact. As an editor, I am sorry to say that there are so many minor errors that any rating highere than 3 stars is false praise, so I would like to help you bring it around to where it truly deserves the praise that it has already received. To do so, I have pasted your story, below, and have inserted corrections and comments in red. Some of the commas are almost optional--- to the point that a publisher might omit them--- and some of those optional commas, I have also omitted. I have inserted a few clarifying words, corrected one misspelling, and made a few word changes, but it is mostly as you wrote it.
A FRIED PIE AND A DAILY VISIT(You might want to center this and/or use a larger type size...)
It was past midnight. She should be asleep. Instead, she was wandering about the house, trying to find God knows what. It was evident to everyone that she was getting worse.
He heard a noise and knew that she had stumbled into something again. He guided her back to the bed, where she fell asleep once again. Morning would come soon enough, so he lay down on his bed across the room and tried going back to sleep himself. His mind was reeling with the realization that he was not the nurse she needed. So sleep did not come. Previalent in his mind was a promise he had made sixty years ago, and because of that promise, he was using every ebb(ebb is a verb, meaning to flow back or decrease; while his strength might be ebbing, he would be using every bit or every ounce)---insert word here--- of strength to see that he kept it.
During the day, he administered her medications when they were due. He saw that she ate. The extent of his cooking was enough to keep them going, but, being a farmer, that part had always been left up to her. He tried new things, and was proud of his accomplishments. He enjoyed watching her eat what he had prepared.
The home health aides came several mornings a week to give her a bath, and straighten through the house. They went beyond their duty, for the couple were easy to love. On alternate days, the nurse came to make sure she was getting her insulin and to check for sores that weren‘t healing.
It was evident to everyone that he was doing his best, although his children, along with the home health employees, wondered how long he would be able to hold out before asking for help. Help had been offered, but, again, the promise that he had made sixty years earlier kept him trying to do everything himself.
Sarah was a shell of her former self. No doubt she was sick and getting worse each day. The diabetes had ravaged her body, her heart was weakened, and age was taking its toll. On good days, she talked about the future and her desire not to ever leave the house that she had lived in most of their married life. She feared the nursing home. On good days, she talked with her friends on the phone. On good days, she listened to her radio or maybe watched a program on TV with Arthur. But those good days were getting few and far between.
He didn’t have to do a lot of thinking on what the future held on these days when things seemed almost normal. It was when his body begged for rest in the wee hours of morning, when she was searching through the house looking for nothing in particular, that, with each heart beat, he asked himself the same question{c;red}., “Lord, what am I going to do?”
Each morning, when she moved from the bed to her chair, she was greeted with a cup of steaming hot coffee. She would take it in both hands with a, “Thank you, Daddy,”, and take a sip. She was unaware that both of their sleeps had been interrupted because of her roaming. Her breakfast was served shortly after her coffee. Sometimes, she felt like going to the table, but, most often, she ate at her chair{c}red}, and, at that, only ate a few bites. “I’ll eat it later,” she always promised.
OnceOne day, weary and tired from days without rest and nights without sleep, he made an error in administering her meds. It was then that he made the decision to talk to one of his six daughters.. Martha lived close by. She and her husband had bought the farm, and Sarah and Arthur were given rights to live there as long as they could. Her number was the first one on the list above the wall phone in the dining room. He dialed her number, trying to keep an eye on Sarah., He nervously waited for her to answer.
“Martha, can you come up here?” She recognized the weariness, and even a sadness, in his voice.
"Is everything OKokay, Daddy?" she asked, trying to think ahead about how long it would take her to get there.
"It's Mother. I just need for you to come up here"
That was all she needed. While hanging up the phone, she told him she would be there. On any other occasion, she could have walked up the hill to their home. However, this was an emergency.
Upon enteringWhen she entered the house, Sarah was incoherent. He, and Arthur was afraid. Somewhere in his administering her medication, he had given something to her twice.--- once more than he should have. When he learnedrealized his error, it was enough to scare him into admitting that he needed help.
“I don’t want to send her to a nursing home. I promised God sixty years ago that I would take care of her, in sickness and health, until death separated us. I just can’t do that to her. It is my responsibility to be there for her!” he wailed from exhaustion and fear..
It was an emotional time for eachboth of them. However, Martha, knowing having known that this day would come, was gentle in her approach to reasoning with him in his distraught state of mind. She was careful not to make the decision for him, only to guide him in making his own.
“But Daddy, you would be giving her the best care she could receive by taking her to the nursing home, where qualified people will take care of her.”
“But she has begged me not to do that!”
“I know, but you have to do what is best for her. You can go every day and sit with her, eat lunch with her. Us girls will also go, so she won't feel we have abandoned her. You would only be away from her at night, when you come home”, Martha gently continued. “And too, if she needed you in the meantime, they would call you.”
He hadn’t thought of it that way; that turning her loose toputting her into someone else’s care was actually still taking care of her. He sat there letting it all soak in, as he kept his eyes towardon his wife.
Reluctantly he agreed, so the necessary steps to get her there were set in order. His tall frame was bent in sobbing, forwhen the inevitable hour had comecame. He had always carried his age well. OneAnyone who did not know him would be hard pressed to believe he was 91, but, today, his weeping was fast making an old man out of him fast. The mental strain he had been under for so long,--- and the nights without rest--- had taken their toll.
Naturally, she did not want to go. To her, it was accepting that she would never come home again. However, he promised her that he would bring her home again.
Occasionally, on week-ends he did just that. He brought her home for an overnight stay. With each visit home though, - she would soon started begging to go back home. Eventually, he understood her new meaning of “home”. It was where she spent all the days that had grown into weeks. Her room at the nursing home was now “Home”
After her meds had been regulated, she was better for a (two words) while. The bright spot of her day was to hear his voice as he answered the, "Good mornings," when the staff greeted him.{c:}(You might want to switch the "as" and "when" in the previous sentence---it works better for me, but it's your sentence.) She listened as his voice got closer, from down the hall, coming toward her room. Always in his hand was a fried apple pie wrapped in wax paper. He kissed her and said, “I made it especially for you.” He had no thoughts or regards she was not supposed to eat sweets, and the nurses on duty did nothing to stop him. They could see he was still taking care of her.
“Thank you, Daddy,”, she whispered, as he settled down into the chair beside her bed. He was keeping the promise that he had made 60 years earlier.
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