Tom Paxton - 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.