Death of a Dad

My father passed away on Jan 7, 2024 about 3 in the morning. I wasn't there. I had intended to spend his final moments with him, but death played a trick on us. We had been sliding with rapidity towards the end, but it all came sooner than predicted. I immediately got out of bed and drove to see him and be there for the funeral home. There was a sense of surrealness about his passing. I had been with him the previous day for some time - but I knew something was horribly wrong. He was trying to eat his oatmeal and he was struggling. I fed him a few bites and he fell asleep mid-bite. Once I made sure he had no food in his mouth, I tucked him in and went out to report his condition to the nurse. He couldn't speak. 

I've talked before about the complex relationship we shared. Though terribly sad for both he and my half-brother, his wife died five years previously. Soon after, my sister and I saw that he could not stay in his house and needed to move. We talked him into moving to our town (where he grew up) and into an independent living facility. After grousing for some little time, he began to love it there. He was the "Homecoming King," participated in a lot of activities, and flirted with all the women. Just the way he liked it. He always thought he was a charmer, and to those not too deeply in the know, he was. He loved to make people laugh. Yet, there was a darkness in him. A bitterness that never left him. An inability to see that the challenges in his life were most often of his own making. Just like it is for all of us.

It was tragic when he transitioned from his independent facility to the skilled nursing care.  He couldn't do what he wanted when he wanted. He hated the food. He went to all his rehab appointments down the hall and then did none of his part of the rehab job between appointments. He wanted out so badly, but he was the one who controlled his outcome and he just didn't do it. Finally, he became one with watching TV 18 hours a day. That was his sole activity. He had no strength left to stand or walk or bathe himself. He started to like the same, vile food. Slowly, whatever shred of dignity and self-determination he had went. And, he no longer cared.

There was one shining light in this horrible, awful outcome for my dad. He got right with all of his children. That was no mean feat. We all felt we were given the time with him we needed to ask the right questions, strip the armour from our hearts, gain the insight we needed to forgive, accept, and at last understand the core of who he was and how his own emotional pain drove so much of his life. 

So much of the past few years of my life were wrapped in dad things, I was at a loss for a while in what to do. Thankfully, I had estate things to manage that took some time. Then, there was nothing left to do. 

I think of him more often than I thought I would.