No Time to Say Goodbye

It was a phone call in the night-

The kind you hear before it rings.

It was a phone call in the night,

When you can hear an angel's wings.

When you know before you answer

That it's someone's time to die,

And when I learned that it was you,

And as I stood there I could feel you passing by-

There was no time to say goodbye.

There was no time to say goodbye;

No time to thank you for the years.

There was no time to say goodbye-

A lamp gone out, light disappears.

And as I stood there in the darkness,

There were more tears than I could cry,

For you were here so totally,

It seemed impossible that you could ever die-

There was no time to say goodbye.

There are pictures in a box,

In a room in a house long miles from here,

There are old seashells and rocks;

Faded labels from our days of German beer.

There are postcards from Montana;

Faded drawings and some drums,

And I can't recall the rest-

Oh, God, you're never really ready when it comes.

There was no time to say goodbye-

I was delayed in getting home.

There was a missed connecting flight,

And when I got here you were gone.

Someone handed me some coffee;

A tiny sandwich made on rye,

I put it down. I stood there looking

At your picture on the mantel, wondering why

There was no time to say goodbye.

No time to thank you for the years.